The TV Series discussion thread

[Shagnak]

I don't think race matters if they ever made a series about Drizzt. The actor would probably be underneath a ton of makeup anyways. Almost every illustration of Drow I've seen shows them (and Drizzt) being a blueish-purple color.

I've always thought that it'd make more sense if Drow were pale-skinned, living away from the sun and all that. There is no sensible reason for all that melanin.
And then we wouldn't have all this brouhaha about black-skin and you'd lure in all the Witcher and Elric fans.

 

[Carnifex]

Give me Elric and Stormbringer over anything else!! Yeah and his sick brother as well.

 

[BrianOConnell]

Half way through Bodkin (also on Netflix), featuring Will Forte as a pod caster looking for that next big podcast hit, along with an investigative reporter and a slightly green researcher (both female). There are some funny clashes between pod caster and hard-nosed reporter about how to best get info out of the locals, and the Irish setting is pleasingly quaint, but so far it's lacking a bit of edge to make things truly engaging.

Enjoying Bodkin but you are right. It's very much an average show with some laughs. It feels so close to being something very good but doesn't quite get there. Plenty of Irish stereotypes and despite being in West Cork the accents are all over the place. I did enjoy the reaction to Will Forte's "I'm Irish". Sorry but in Ireland we do get a bit mystified when Americans say to us they are Irish.

 

[Carnifex]

Oh man if that show is set in Ireland I might have to check it out.

 

[Shagnak]

I did enjoy the reaction to Will Forte's "I'm Irish". Sorry but in Ireland we do get a bit mystified when Americans say to us they are Irish.

Who wouldn't want to be Irish, you seem like a fun lot.
It sounds weird, yeah. Some people over here do a similar thing, but most people qualify it as "I'm of Irish descent" or "I have some Irish blood" or similar.

I'm usually saying the opposite as I have an Irish last name but not an ounce of Irish ancestry (my mostly-German grandfather was adopted).

 

[JFarrell71]

I've been known to say the words "I'm Irish" to people on occasion when talking about our genealogy, despite being born in the US and with no direct Irish relatives, but I would never say such a thing to someone actually in or from Ireland!

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I've been looking into Sugar, a new mini-series with Colin Farrell. It both looks interesting and uninteresting at the same time.

 

[BrianOConnell]

I've been known to say the words "I'm Irish" to people on occasion when talking about our genealogy, despite being born in the US and with no direct Irish relatives, but I would never say such a thing to someone actually in or from Ireland!

Yeah as Shagnak says we know they mean they have Irish ancestry but it does sound a but odd coming from someone with an american accent. Having said that I think most Irish are very proud of how far and wide we spread down the years even if much of it was *cough* encouraged by some dodgy potatoes and our lovely colonial overlords.

 

[JFarrell71]

I've been looking into Sugar, a new mini-series with Colin Farrell. It both looks interesting and uninteresting at the same time.

I like noir detective stuff in general so I bookmarked it.

 

[Tony]

I’ve been putting some thought into childhood trauma from living in a household with one TV in the late 70s/early 80s.

I don’t mean real trauma from some objectively terrible event, but I think there’s something to this. I used to be sent outside to play whenever there was daylight, but on rainy days or at night, when the adults controlled the TV, the shows and movies they watched still have a big impact on me.

There’re some shows (or type of shows) that cause me to feel real emotion even now. I can’t watch them or give them a fair shake.

The king among these shows is Dr. Who. I know there’s new ones with actual production value, but my childhood memories are of very strange looking man in a dank cave set that seemed like a bad high school play. Way worse production value than any other show ever made. There’d be some sort of red blurry, horrible effect thing as a monster. 99% talking.

Maybe the old show is great if watched as an adult. I’ll never know. I’ll never be able to watch Dr. Who. Even the thought of Dr. Who gives me the same bad emotions it did as a kid.

Shows that were mostly adults just talking with no real catch or anything interesting at all happening for a kid are the main culprits. All the dumb cop movies and series just broke my mind and I believe this is why I can’t get into Sopranos or The Wire or similar shows everyone else loves and constantly recommends.

I can’t be the only one that has this childhood TV-show/movie trauma. I hope not.

 

[JDR13]

I watched the old Doctor Who as a kid and loved it. Tom Baker was my favorite Doctor, but I liked the series in general and also purchased every novel and comic book I could get my hands on.

 

[Carnifex]

Nod, whenever I feel the urge to watch Doctor Who these days, it's the classics I go to, basically any doctor from the sixties, seventies or eighties. Baker, of course, being hilarious and having the best companions, imo.

 

[Tony]

If I remembering right, both of you also like the Sparanos and the Wire. I'll never understand the Dr. Who thing, but is there any shows you won't try because of your parents watching it and you hated it?

 

[JDR13]

If I remembering right, both of you also like the Sparanos and the Wire. I'll never understand the Dr. Who thing, but is there any shows you won't try because of your parents watching it and you hated it?

I can't say I had that experience, but I usually had a separate TV as a kid, so I never had to watch what my parents were watching.

I do remember trying to watch M.A.S.H. with them a few times, and I thought it was the most boring thing in the world.

 

[JFarrell71]

My dad watched westerns and Star Trek, which I liked and still like, and my mom and I watched a lot of shows together, like Cheers, Northern Exposure and Twin Peaks. So I never had that issue.

 

[Shagnak]

I can’t be the only one that has this childhood TV-show/movie trauma. I hope not.

Sure, I can't stomach British soap operas. but I think even if I hadn't been over exposed to those I wouldn't have been able to stomach them anyway.

I think my experience was mainly the opposite, because my parents let me watch stuff I probably shouldn't have. I was pretty lucky as my father was an electronics repairman, so he'd have access to movie projectors and somehow be able to intercept movie reels that were doing the rounds at various boarding schools (I think the company he worked for repaired their stuff?). We also had access to VHS and Betamax players, and DVD players, when they were early days and not commonly available to someone with the income of the lower-middle class that we were.

So I'd get to watch movies like Dirty Harry and The Omen on the "big screen" (aka a portable projector screen that barely fit in our living room).
I'd disappear if they were watching boring soaps (which they still do), but it was common for us to watch shows together like Cheers, Hill Street Blues, Taxi, etc etc, as well as British comedies like "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet", Open All Hours, 'Allo 'Allo.

Stuff like Star Trek, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactrica, Doctor Who, Sapphire and Steel (this played relatively late at night over here for some reason) I watched mostly by myself or with my sister. They were often in the room, but it was more like "let's indulge him as he likes it".
My father found a pirated copy of Star Wars on VHS and I think I watched it 100 times.

 

[Carnifex]

We only had one telly and whatever our parents wanted to watch was what was on, so if we didn't care for it we'd play Risk, Monopoly, or go back outside and play kick the can until the street lights clicked off.

 

[Tony]

We only had one telly and whatever our parents wanted to watch was what was on, so if we didn't care for it we'd play Risk, Monopoly, or go back outside and play kick the can until the street lights clicked off.

My exact situation. I only left when it was a soap opera or romance or a "girl show." I'm trying to figure out why I just can't get into Sopranos or The Wire. We've been trying to find a new series to watch and we tried both again and still couldn't do it. Everyone I share like 99% of my taste with all love these shows. Gazillions of people loved both. I should be able to watch and love them too.

I think the answer is all the shows I forced myself to sit through and hated as a child. I tried to get into shows I considered "guy shows." I left for what I considered "girl shows." I love "girl shows" now. I think Echoes is one of the best series to come out recently. When we want to watch a movie, more often than not I go to Hulu and watch some Lifetime type movie. I love them now. I don't even try shows like True Detective.

Maybe it's just a midlife crisis messing with my taste. Maybe I have severe low T now. I'm turning 50 next year. But I think my theory makes the most sense.

I also looked up the version of Dr. Who I was subjected to as a kid and my description was accurate. It's terrible. I have no idea how a kid under nine years of age could like this.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLq01Btse3Q

 

[JDR13]

Those early seasons of Doctor Who are like fine art. Some people can appreciate them, some people can't.

To be fair, I probably wouldn't have liked it either if I was that young. I wasn't introduced to it while it was airing but rather to reruns later on. I think I was around 13-14 at the time.

 

[Shagnak]

Stuff wot I watched recently:

Finished season 2 of Them.
Real creepy stuff. Very much channels late 80s and early 90s horror franchises like Nightmare on Elm Street, Candyman, and so on. Like those, perhaps gets a little silly toward the end, and the ending is predictable, but up til then a satisfyingly creepy ride. Nice tie-in in the last episode to the first season, too. I recommend it, with some minor caveats.

Watched the first episode of The Devil in Ohio.
It looked so good in the trailers, but it was a major disappointment. Was almost like a daytime soap opera, in both content and cinematography. My wife described it as "insipid". We won't be watching the rest.

Finished the latest season of American Horror Story.
This one's called "Delicate" (based on a book) and has a cool Rosemary's Baby meets Eurotrash horror vibe.
Alas, it also has Kim Kardashian, who ruins every scene she's in. She needed some serious voice and acting coaching. She has this monotone buzz of a voice that takes me out of every scene she's in, and the dead-eyed expression of an old used-up porn star.
And then the final episode. Fuck. AHS is a seriously variable show as it is, but sometimes it can be good. This isn't one of those times. It's like they gave up at the end. The final episode is maybe 30 minutes long, full of the cringiest dialogue I've heard in a while and possibly the dumbest, most perfunctory defeat of a supernatural villain in AHS's history. Pathetic.