Topic: The TV Show Thread

The missus and I have started watching Poker Face this weekend (we’re probably just over half way through season 1) and I really like it. I always quite liked Natasha Lyonne and she fits perfectly here as a sort of cross between Stevie Nicks and Columbo, solving unbelievably well-orchestrated murders while she is on the run from the Vegas mafia. Great little show.

A weekly reaction to The Last of Us season 2. Overall a good episode and some of what I’d hoped to see, although I’m not sure it will resonate with the average viewer.

A few mild spoilery thoughts limited to just the TV show, episode 6 itself:

Again, I can’t help but ponder the way the show wanders from the game’s narrative. The content in the episode in some ways is better for TV but still robs the story of some moments that seemed to hit harder during the game. So some thoughts, including spoilers for the game:

I will say that it’s a bummer we only have one episode left and will probably have to wait at least a year to see the second half of the story.

Lol, I did write that before reading the front page review, I promise. But it’s good to know I have some similar feelings about the episode as Aaron does. I know he’s a huge TLoU fan.

I heard season 7 of Black Mirror was a bit of a return to form after the American's hijacked the show and ruined it 😂 Just finished the first story, Common People. Not entirely sure how to feel about it. It still feels like quite an American story, getting into crippling, life ruining, debt to afford medical treatments. There are some emotionally affecting moments, but overall, I just found the episode a little too broad. What exactly is this episode even a critique of? The American medical system? The spiralling nature of subscription services? That subscription services have insidiously crept into so many parts of our lives, for things that never needed them and only exist to make the company selling them money? Is it a jab at get rich quick internet fame schemes, where people will debase themselves for clicks and views in the hope of a pay out? I dunno, attacking all these things at once while trying to tell a human story in the middle of it all just never really worked for me. Its funny too because I am pretty sure this is the only episode Charlie Brooker helped write, but I may as well watch the others and see now.

More Black Mirror thoughts. Episode 2 was more focused than episode one, but that is kinda where the positives end for me. Utterly comes off the rails at the end, doesn't feel very Black Mirror. Meh.

I thought episode 3 was going to be a critique of AI Art, but it pivoted into something quite different by the end. Also maybe quite Pro AI, which kinda feels like anti Black Mirror? I dunno, it is weird, because the pivot was still quite interesting, got the cogs turning - especially when recently playing Expedition 33 weirdly enough, which asks some similar questions.

The problem with this episode is the pivot comes far too late, and is therefore not able to be explored all that meaningfully. I think they should have done the whole episode on the authenticity of relationships with AI. And if it even matters if they are inauthentic, as emotions are not something we can tangibly interact with, but we still regard them as real. And this goes for any piece of media or whatever we consume, perception and reality are surely defined at least in part by how things make us feel, so if we cry at the death of a virtual character, is that connection somehow less real than when we say cry at the loss of someone in our "real" life? But that's not the episode we got, so whatever.

Episode 4 was a genuine return to form for me, felt like classic Black Mirror in the best possible way. Really enjoyed this episode, highlight of the season for me and one of the best Black Mirror episodes I have watched in ages. Weird though it is a semi sequel to Bandersnatch which is now no longer even on Netflix any more.

@Pizzamorg apart from Black Mirror, which you already have mixed thoughts on, is there anything of worth on Netflix any more?

I noped out a year or two ago when I realised I was paying an inflated £18 for it whilst the service and content itself was on a steep decline in quality. I believe the last thing I did was downvote the Witcher content and unsubscribe 😅

They also cancelled all of the adult animation shows I might have kept it for, and instead started producing f***ing reality tv shows 🤦‍♂️

And I'm not surprised that Brooker barely writes for Black Mirror any more either, to be honest. The last ones I remember watching were the one with Jesse Plemons (who was of course very good in it) and Black Museum

@Ravix I actually rescubscribed for WWE if I am being honest. I used to pay for Netflix and the WWE Network, but now I just get both under one roof. Beyond that, it does have some good original anime on there, or at least anime that isn't anywhere else like Pluto or Eden's Zero. If you aren't into wrestling or anime though, I'm not sure how much value Netflix offers, especially as its now so expensive and the stream quality is so much worse than it used to be.

@Pizzamorg thanks for providing the lay of the land. I guess that's why they jacked the prices up originally then, to pay for their WWE deal. Yeah, I have zero interest in that, but I was going to try and get in to anime a little, but the fact they cancelled all the western animated shows left a foul taste. There was one Sci-Fi anime that looked good I was going to check out, but I forget the name now. Looked like a classic, slow paced, cerebral mystery kind of science fiction, not sure it was even a Netflix production though, tbh, they might have just had it on there.

If Netflix is, for the most part, reality tv and wrestling I might only get the odd month if there is something must-watch. They occasionally still distribute decent independent cinema (I would hope) although The Power of the Dog is the last example I can think of right now and that was 2021/2022? 😬

Man. The subscritpion market is oversaturated and understocked 😢

@Ravix @Pizzamorg I recently resubbed to continue my Star Trek catch-up (I'm watching DS9 and Voyager) and to check out Black Mirror. I'm also curious about the upcoming "Dept. Q" crime series set in Scotland which drops on the 29th. Other than that, there's not much of interest for me (at least not until s2 of "3 Body Problem" drops). Oh yeah, and s2 of "The Sandman".
IMO, most of the Netflix produced stuff is mediocre at best and whatever they manage to pull off they quickly cancel, so I rarely invest in anything new they put out. They did have a pretty solid limited series from Thailand called "Don't Come Home", where every episode was pretty much a different genre (from haunted house to crime procedural to science fiction), so it's not all bad. Least essential streaming service for me, though, and when I need to cut back on expenses, it's the first to go.

@Ravix @FuriousMachine I appreciate it is not a new thought, but just to echo those who came before, we truly have come full circle with streaming services. Once a solution that tried to solve the outdated cable system, the dvd rental system and piracy all at once, with an affordable, and deep, catalogue of titles you could access immediately. But now what you used to get a tenner for on Netflix, is now spread across like eight different streaming services, and they now all cost more than that original Netflix subscription did, to boot. Between that, and the reintroduction of ad tiers on these platforms, we have basically just recreated the problem these platforms once tried to solve.

In fact, in some ways, they made it worse because at least with cable it was just one direct debit, I feel like almost every person today has at least one subscription service they don't use, but haven't cancelled, that is slowly accumulating a significant sum on some credit card you haven't looked at the statements for for several years. I mean people have made entire new businesses around services that keep on top of all of your subscriptions for you, talk about first world problems and first world solutions!

I'd never advocate for piracy, but I guess the only way this ends, is they end up pricing out their consumers, creating a new piracy boom period, causing the bubble to burst and some new solution to be introduced to solve the now streamer problem and then we start the cycle all over again.

On topic, I just finished the next Black Mirror episode, Eulogy. Another weirdly pro-ai feeling story, but also absolutely beautiful. I cried at the end. Not sure I've ever been moved by Black Mirror like that.

Watched Ep 6 of TLoUp2, and I can't help think I would have much prefered the series to be edited/arranged with more

earlier on (maybe 3 more episodes in total, too) I've said a few times I would happily watch many more slow paced episodes with minimal action, just human interactions that let us go on a journey with these interesting people, and then you can build up to the important plot points and action heavy episodes throughout the series and make them mean more to the viewer.

It's almost like they fear people will get bored, but these episodes are way more engrossing than the regular actions heavy ones.

I feel, as a TV product alone,

if it was after more of these character building episodes too, especially with the reminders of who he is and what drives him. Unless you are binge watching, it's been 2 years since we saw the events of Season one, too.

So, to me, this season feels a little bit all over the place tbh and even more rushed than s1. As well as being much shorter than it could have been.

s2 we got the "5 years later" time skip near instantly, without it ever feeling deserved, or, with us as the viewer being on that journey ourselves. Eventually in ep6 we get to fill in some of that gap, but there was surely scope for many more episodes, flash backs, character moments in a story that spans 20 to 30 years. They could have maybe had 30/40 episodes out of the IP already, without it ever feeling like they are milking it.

I don't know, i'm just not fond of the overall structure for it and the short nature of the seasons tbh. Despite liking most of the content itself 🤷‍♂️

So, turns out that my feeling that Wheel of Time was safe due to good critical reception and increased viewership for S3 was wrong. Amazon just axed it and said it was almost a purely financial decision, as the show was very expensive. I applaud this decision, as I was getting worried that Bezos was losing money. He needs to able to shoot himself into outer space as often as possible, along with the other billionaires (and I don't think they need to be all that bothered with doing security checks before launching either, just go and hope for the best).

@FuriousMachine Man. Streaming services suck. I know things used to get cancelled on TV, too, but this is so frequent it's laughable. Why even start making any shows if you don't intend to finish them, that would indeed save them even more money 🙄

Ah well. Bring on that cheap to make reality tv that everyone loves to pump into their empty, vacuous heads.

Who needs writers and actors when you can tell a group of f***wits to do stupid things in front of cameras with a loose bit of direction on how stupid to sound whilst doing it with some forced faux emotion splatted on top.

In 5 years time everything is just going to be reruns of old tv (already written, acted, filmed and edited? kerching) reality tv and sport.

@Ravix Yeah, frequent cancellations of series that lack a proper resolution has turned me off Netflix and is about to turn me off Amazon as well. Back in my pirating days, when there wasn't really any streaming alternatives, I liked the strategy that the CW employed for their series. Instead of cancelling shows outright, they would renew a struggling show for a final season, maybe even just half a season or a handful of episodes, so that the showrunners got the opportunity to end the series properly.
It shows a respect for your viewership that seems to be completely absent elsewhere, though I feel that Apple TV+ mostly sees their shows through. I have yet to feel shorted by them, at least.

@FuriousMachine Apple is still relatively new to the market and has only become nearly as recognisable as the others over the last couple of years, so they will get there too 😬

Streaming is doomed within the capitalist model. Lines have to go up, but your viewership/subscribers will naturally hoover up your content as tv shows take longer to make than watch (who'd have thought that 😱) so the more they watch, the less they have to watch in future. This is the stagnating point where people unsubscribe and your numbers level out or decline as you run out of ways to tempt new customers to replace them. Every single customer has a drop off point where they reach a time where the value proposition no longer works for them. Paying x amount year for 15 different shows I might watch over my subscription, good deal. Paying x a year for one sequel of a show I like during one month of their yearly output, not a good deal. So you pick and choose and unsubscribe.

But the line must still go up. So they make cuts to budgets, to quality, to jobs, and cut whole shows completely, then increase prices for the customer: anything to keep that line going up.

It's bleak, it really is. Which is why I hate Game Pass too, despite it clearly being good in the short term for the customer, it is bad for gaming in the long term, very, very bad.

Decided to go back and start Black Mirror again from the beginning. It is funny, at almost 15 years old and very much set in the present day it was made in, the opening episode, National Anthem now feels rather quaint and also quite dated. More period piece now, than some dystopian look forwards at a world sent askew by some tech invention. Although there is this horrifying, grossness, to the way it all culminates, giving the whole thing a murky edge that feels missing in the Netflix era.

Fifteen Million Merits is as bad as some of the later Netflix era stuff, for me. Forcing the viewer to rubberneck problems with no purpose. This episode doesn't really have anything to say, nor does it really try to challenge the audience, it is just sorta pointing at a lot of stuff. Weakest episode of the season for me.

However, just when it seemed like season one was a write off, we get our final episode of the season, The Entire History Of You. It is weird, because the tech of the episode 'the Grain' could have been taken to some big places, but I feel like that would have almost been too obvious? I feel had this been made in the Netflix era it would be some surveillance state commentary that culminates in some huge action sequence as people remove their Grains and rise up or something. However, in the smaller budget Channel 4 era of Black Mirror, they instead have to focus down on just a few characters, and how it affects their life and I think it really creates something special as a result. It helps that all the performances are great, anchoring a story like this around such a small cast could have been a disaster if we had even one weak link, but it is episodes like this that made me fall in love with Black Mirror in the first place.

@Ravix Absolutely agree. Netflix has long since opted for quantity over quality, in the hopes of keeping the subscriber on the hook. These models are simply not sustainable in the long run. In many ways, the network TV model is healthier as with that release model, it takes longer to watch than to produce something. The binge release model runs counter to that and fosters a quantity over quality approach. Where network TV often fails is that the output is, by necessity, mostly bland and takes very few risks. That's where cable and the likes of HBO and Showtime found their strength.
Initial offerings from the streamers took quite a few risks as well, but now the output seems increasingly safe and bland, unfortunately.

1883 - incredible show, probably the best pure Western tv show I’ve ever seen.

@graymamba
Nice that is on my list as is the whole saga, as Lemmy would say “I wanna be a cowboy”

I’m watching on tubi, the Dead Zone series and Stan against Evil which is very much a Evil dead inspired series, pretty good but pretty weird and it stars everyone’s favourite doctor.

Finished my rewatch of Season 2 of Black Mirror, thought this season was honestly pretty great from start to finish. Be Right Back and the questions it asks the audience to probe have even more horrifying dimensions today than they ever did when this released, allowing it to age with real grace (in the most terrifying of ways). It also feels like a more nuanced, more critical, exploration of AI than a lot of later season episodes that seem to house a lot of optimism for AI. The replica Ash is never a true replacement, and there is something terrifying and forbidden around him. Martha realising the replica has no soul, no human experience, no texture or depth beyond surface imitations of a dead person and dropping the line “No history, just a performance”, I mean holy hell, it feels practically prophetic for the very arguments we're now having online every day.

We follow this up with White Bear, it kinda starts like a Boomer Facebook meme come to life, but it develops into something wonderfully bonkers, and I was quite impressed by just how well they kept this on the rails, despite so many disparate parts and so many out there ideas.

This is followed by The Waldo Moment. Was kinda dreading this, as I remember this being one of my least favourite episodes as a kid, it is definitely the weakest episode of the season, and it does come off the rails a bit at the end but this is another episode where either it, or I, or both, have all aged into a place where I actually really appreciate this now. It again feels quite prophetic, holding up a mirror to the very kind of political landscape we are already in, and arguably have been for at least a decade now. I suppose it is no longer a question of if, just a question of when, a V-Tuber tries to challenge for a local election.

The finally White Christmas. I thought this was probably the second weakest episode of this season, but still great overall, just a little long for me. It is funny too, cause I would have argued that exploring exaggerated outcomes of how far the idea of blocking a person could go would have seemed a little quaint in 2025, where it feels like we just don't really talk about this any more and just accept it as a part of our lives (although maybe that does make it relevant in a roundabout way) but then Musk recently dragged blocking back into the mainstream conversation by fundamentally altering what blocking meant on his social platform, dragging this episode back into relevance again, as people are now once again debating all the sociopolitical parts to what a block means for creating spaces people can feel safe within. Like man, if I could have just blocked all the kids that had bullied me in school? I'd be a completely different person today.