@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.
@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.
Just binged the the whole of The Last of Us season 2 today and both I (someone who has played the games) and the missus (someone who hasn’t) thought it was great. Without reading too much of the various news stories/reviews etc. as I didn’t want to spoil any potential deviations from the second game… I was aware of some level of furore. Seems like the reaction to this second season is mirroring the reaction to the second game back in 2020 and… I didn’t agree with it then and don’t now. Great season of tv and the little extra scenes here and there provided some great extra context I thought. Good stuff!
@Jimmer-jammer I agree that with you regarding the pivotal scene of (TV show final episode and game spoilers incoming) —
Having Ellie kill Owen and Mel “accidentally”, and then the reveal of Mel’s pregnancy being handled this way as opposed to Owen’s dying breath being “Preg…nant…” did take care of that awkward moment in the game. The request by Mel to do an impromptu C-section with her pocket knife was a little odd though. And at this point, the audience doesn’t know Mel is a medical person (although the way she tries to instruct Ellie alludes to it) and all the bloodied supplies there don’t have any meaning until we find out Mel just amputated Lev’s sister’s arm (I’m blanking on her name atm).
As a player, I’m picking up all the clues they are sprinkling in like that, but the lay audience just isn’t getting those small narrative pieces and are growing unsatisfied with the pacing and lack of closure. It would be okay if season 3 was 6 months away, but 2 years is a long time to just leave things unresolved. When playing the game, even though it’s a 50 hour investment, you can get through the anticipation of the story within a few days of playing through it. The long time between episodes and seasons doesn’t gel with a story that requires so much emotional investment to get the full impact.
Still, I’ve enjoyed it and there’s a lot to like about how the TV show was done.
@graymamba How did the missus respond to the closing moments of the last episode? Did she say Is Ellie dead?! Is Tommy going to die too?! What happens?! And did she also express frustration that we are going back to day 1 and having to watch Abby, a character who has had very little development to this point? And if so, did you have to explain a lot of what’s going on and who’s who and why they’re significant (like Mel and Owen)?
@Jimmer-jammer@graymamba I enjoyed it also. I had a few quibbles with some of the dialogue and one or two decisions I didnt get why they even bothered, but nothing too major really.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@Jimmer-jammer@graymamba@Th3solution@JohnnyShoulder Overall, I've enjoyed the season, but I did feel that it was rushing through the story just to hit this particular season finale. Maybe it was necessary to keep that pace to avoid non-gamers getting bored, I don't know.
I noticed, for my part, that I checked out a little bit during the final two episodes (though I did have a silent sob or two during the penultimate episode), so I may not feel as invested as I did in the first season.
Still, as with pretty much every adaptation of pretty much anything, the source material works way better, so I tried to stop comparing it, only to find I really sucked at not doing that 😉
In other TV observations, the new Apple TV+ series Murderbot has been a lot of fun so far. I read the first novella ("All Systems Red") which this season is based on before going in and, again, the source material does it better, but there is something about Alexander Skarsgård's delivery of the inner monologue that really makes the show shine. Hopefully, they'll manage to see it through the season (I've also, just today, finished the second novella, "Artificial Condition", which I found even more entertaining than the first one, but it would probably need to be heavily rejiggered if they want to base any potential season 2 on that story alone. Great read, though!)
@Th3solution yeah, she definitely had questions like… I just told her that she’d have to wait though… or that I’d happily reinstall The Last of &s Part 2 for her to actually play it 😏. Didn’t go down well tbh 🤣.
I fear that Doctor Who may have finally lost me. Like I barely paid attention during the Whittaker years but I still tuned in. RTD has been an unmitigated disaster since rejoining and I feel just as bad for Gatwa as I did for Whittaker, good actors given terrible scripts. It’s a shame because I thought the first half of this season was a massive improvement over last year, great companion and a fresh feel. These last few episodes have been dire, minus The Story And The Engine which I felt had great ideas if a little muddled in its exposition. Now I’m an absolute nerd super fan who genuinely enjoys a good portion of 80s Who but bringing back certain characters who haven’t been seen since the 80s is beyond silly for a so called reboot of the show, how is anyone new to the series supposed to know about characters last seen in 1989? It just proves that you should never ever go back and rehire showrunners, always keep moving forwards.
Plus, I still think all the cult stuff is pretty much nonsense in terms of the TV show and them just basically being there for... reasons.
The series had to have many, many more episodes in my opinion, and go much, much deeper into everything. I feel like they barely scratched the surface on so much and I'm starting to not really care about Seattle and it's supposed importance and I very much don't care about the WLF and the war.
It'd be interesting to see what the TV only viewers thought about the series as a whole. But I'd say it's getting a lot more hit and miss. I don't mind there being less zombie stuff in favour of more human stories, but I'm struggling to see the WLF and Cult as a genuine human story at the moment, it's been there more as a bit of additional post apocalypse flavour rather than something that draws the viewer in to care.
Hmm. What do all the game players feel about the parts that aren't specifically tied to Joel, Ellie, Abbey at the moment in the show? Do you feel like because you've played the game the WLF/Cult stuff is actually going anywhere meaningful, or is it a similar thing in the games where it's more flavour, and because it's a game you naturally spend more time in the heads of Joel, Ellie and Abbey so it doesn't matter that it isn't as meaningful?
When it seems you're out of luck.
There's just one man who gives a f*************ck
⚔️🛡🐎
@Ravix It’s an interesting question. It’s an astute observation, especially considering you haven’t played the game, although I know your familiarity with the game and its history is much more than Joe Public who’s casually watching it just because its the big pop-up on his Max streaming app.
For me, while playing the game I actually didn’t focus very much on the nuances of the WLF and Seraphite war. It’s like you said, it was a creepy cult-like group that you were scared of and wanted to definitely avoid, and a militant group bullying people around similar to FEDRA and even the Fireflys. It was all background noise as I was focused on the characters, Ellie, et al. It was only after finishing the game and revisiting it through spoilercasts and interviews that I came to appreciate the more overt reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and warring nations/tribes/factions in general. The Ellie-Abby conflict is a more subtle metaphor of those ageless conflicts, and it’s interesting how the personal vendettas echo the community based wars of hate, grudge, resentment and complete loss of who started it first and who wronged whom first. The spiral into cycles of violence can be seen in the individuals (Ellie-Abby) and in the societies (WLF-Scars)
We all see the vanity and futility of such endless revenge cycles and think it’s rather ridiculous that people would not see the error of their ways and just say enough is enough. No one wins in this situation. And yet, humankind continues to do exactly this, even today. Useless violence that doesn’t make any sense if you just look at it all from the outside.
It’s not the only parallels in the story either, and I won’t do spoilers but there are interesting reflections of the groups and individuals as will become apparent later.
In the remaining story, again without spoiling anything, there’s a deeper dive into the two factions and each of their identities, motivations, and cultures and that background does play a larger role as the story continues.
@Th3solution yeah, I mean the conflict and all that is very much what humans do, we know this. And Felix (yes I'll call him Felix for the sake of this 😅) even made the comment in a pretty on the nose way in episode 3 or 4 within the copper pan scene. Basically saying at this point basically no one really remembers what started it but the blame will always go on the other side for the last atrocity, and they've all wronged each other enough that both sides don't really give a sh** any more, they just want to win.
It's more of the overall nature of the groups and why they just kind of exist there when, as a TV viewer, we just have to accept a bunch of bald people who are good at whislting now raise their children in the woods and cut their faces up because it's season 2 and even more time we didn't experience has passed by 😅
The time skips are some of my biggest gripes with the show overall and the lack of time to absorb events. In a game it kind of doesn't matter, because you are playing it and have much more time, and you can get DLC, and even lore notes to fill some gaps. You can't read a few pages of a book or letter in the middle of a tv show, for example. So it feels like more needs to be done to build the world for the viewer now the general feeling of novelty has worn off from season 1.
More "Bill" episodes where you just get a sense that other people existed in this world and have stories worth seeing would probably have solved a lot of the minor issues for me.
But I know the ending didn't really make me think "oh I can't wait for season 3" which is a bit of a shame for a show that I've enjoyed for the most part.
@Ravix TLoU Universe is ripe for more storytelling, and in an alternate timeline where Bungie didn’t kill it, I think that’s what Factions 2 was supposed to be. It would have served to fill in the texture of the world and the groups of people who live in it.
And you’re right about the game having time to absorb a few things the show doesn’t, and all the opportunities to read the little letters and logs if you want to. The game does do time skips, but it’s less annoying because you know you control the ability to keep playing until you get back to the other timeline and see what happens. Here in the show, we just left with bunch of unanswered questions and it’s hard to tell if it’s just world filler content that won’t ever be addressed, or is it going to be backtracked to fill in the gaps later.
Suffice it to say that season 3 is certain to have some of what you seek in “a sense that other people existed in this world and have stories worth seeing”. There’s some of that to come. Unless the TV show strips the storyline of some of its unique characters and events forthcoming.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@graymamba Yeah, as I posted on Saturday, it was almost purely a financial decision. Critical reception and viewership wasn't good enough for the cost of the show, apparently. Bezos needs those millions in his pockets so he can build rockets.
(I initially said that viewership was up in S3, but I've recently seen reports to the contrary, so I must have dreamed that, or something)
@FuriousMachine yeah it definitely looked a real expensive show… and I have always been worried that the viewer numbers would lead to it being cancelled (suprised it made it to season 3 actually) but I always held out hope that it might build up a big enough following. Shame as it’s a better show that Rings of Power but just doesn’t hold the gravitas amongst the public.
Been watching Your Friends and Neighbours this week and… apart from having not yet seen the season finale (I thought the show had finished airing but the 9th and final ep went up today) it’s really good. I’ve never really liked Jon Hamm much but I actually really like him in this… seems far more relatable than I usually find him. The supporting cast of actors, that for the most part I’m not that familiar with all do a pretty great job too.
It has that Breaking Bad/Ozark feel, where dramatic dire straits are always presented with enough sardonic wit that you can’t help but smile. Beautifully shot too, as are all Apple TV+ shows tbh… and some nice use of music both on the soundtrack and performed by Jon Hamm’s in-show sister Lena Hall (who’s a Broadway star apparently). If anyone’s looking for a dark slice-of-life, with pitch-black humour you could do far worse.
@graymamba
Apple is definitely trying to be like HBO in terms of prestige tv shows featuring big name actors which is a smart idea but their biggest issue is that they are lacking in terms of a movie library and they don't seem to be doing anything to rectify that. If you need to compete in the streaming market you need to offer movies too. Otherwise the 11 bucks a month is kind of a steep asking price at least when by comparison I can pay a few bucks more and get Max with prestige shows and a pretty large movie library on top of that.
Born too early to explore space and born too late to explore Earth, but born just in time to explore memes.
Forums
Topic: The TV Show Thread
Posts 4,281 to 4,300 of 4,601
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic