The TV Series discussion thread

Originally Posted by joxer
Anyone preordering?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0828J93DK…SIN=B0828J93DK

Not me - neither that nor the plushie. The dogs would get the plushie (and even if we put it on a shelf the cat would knock it down for the dogs … it’s a conspiracy!).

Mandalorian going downhill i think, did not like ep5. Every episode has been a little worse than the previous, imo. 4 was "ok" but didn't leave me impressed, this was bad.

Originally Posted by txa1265
I actually really like that the US show notes this at the opening of *every* episode.

Actually watched all three versions and each one takes the series in a different direction. The US version tries to be more realistic and removed some of the romance & drama.

Originally Posted by lostforever
I think you may be right on that. I am less averse to subtitles than my wife as I have been watching "foreign" stuff more than her. I tend to get distracted when a scene is both plot and action heavy, in other words too much going on at the same time.

As for me I started reading subtitles for anime almost twenty years ago. After that a friend introduced me to a few foreign shows. Been hooked ever since.

It also helps that you learn some the language after watching for a few years. Though I do agree its hard to read subs when the action picks up and moves faster.

Originally Posted by joxer
Anyone preordering?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0828J93DK…SIN=B0828J93DK

Reminds me of the glow worm toy my parents fought to get for X-mas thirty years ago.

I viewed the first episode of the Rook the other day, based on the novel of the same title. It looked like a good start, of course for me tv/movies never seem to be as good as the books they come from, but I'd say this one was off to a decent beginning.

Saw that series a few months ago and really enjoyed it.

I'm planning to catch up on the fourth season of Mr. Robot. I haven't watched
the latest episode yet. This season has been absolutely wild.

Last night I watched the first episode of the Boys, I rather enjoyed it a lot. Interesting premise, a good set-up at the beginning, and the cast seems pretty solid. I'll likely watch another episode or two this week at some point.

Just finished Walking Dead S9. I enjoyed it, the new character dynamics after the time jump definitely freshened things up for me. It was still annoying that like so many shows that characters will act irrationally or unlikely events happen to serve the plot, but I didn't get as infuriated with them like I did with Rick in previous seasons.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
Last night I watched the first episode of the Boys, I rather enjoyed it a lot. Interesting premise, a good set-up at the beginning, and the cast seems pretty solid. I'll likely watch another episode or two this week at some point.

Best series of 2019 together with Kingdom.

Originally Posted by vurt
Best series of 2019 together with Kingdom.

I saw couple of episodes of Kingdom and for some strange reason its was kind of disturbing and then stopped. I will have to see it again because I have been hearing good stuff about it everywhere.

Originally Posted by lostforever
I saw couple of episodes of Kingdom and for some strange reason its was kind of disturbing and then stopped. I will have to see it again because I have been hearing good stuff about it everywhere.

It is disturbing.. its quite a unique take on the zombie genre, really anticipating season 2.. there were perhaps a few things i didnt think made total sense or felt a bit "it has to play out like this to make it interesting, even if its not making 100% sense" but overall i loved it.

I remember we were already discussing it.
Kingdom.
It offers a fresh take in the stale zombies genre. I hate zombies anything, but every now and then something positively surprises me like Kingdom did. As usual, I started watching it without knowing there are zombies inside. If I knew, I wouldn't try it which would be a shame.

Not sure if I wrote it before, Netflix poached the scriptwriter from the gem Signal, one of the best shows from 2016, if not the best overall IMO. Because of that, it's still a question if Signal will get the second season.

Note that Signal was added to Netflix catalogue only recently. The original show, not japanese nor chinese most probably inferior remakes. Signal takes actual crimes from korean history, and some of it are political hot potatoes - filming any stuff that criticizes politics and jury system is banned in china thus they had to rewrite everything or water it down.

The Boys goes into the same basket with Titans and Umbrella Academy. Groups of superheroes that are potentially (or really are) supervillains, in stories about people totally opposite from morally "clean" Avengers. Pick either one or all three and fun is guaranteed.

If you're searching for "the best" from this year, I'm also suggesting Love, Death & Robots.
A couple I recommend skipping (overrated) are Chernobyl and Baptiste. The first one presents itself as accurate but is too much of innacurate. The second one is drag-o-rama and wasted potential of it's parent show.

There are also shows I want to see but due to lack of time still couldn't, recommended to me by friends. When They See Us and Unbelievable are examples.

I read up on the Mandalorian. So the first season cost over 100 million. LOTR trilogy cost 93 million… that's pretty crazy considering Mandalorian has like 1 half-famous actor doing the voice, CGI is.. decent i guess, but noting to write home about, it doesn't really have a lot of "epic" scenes (which can be very costly). LOTR had the best CGI for its time, many super epic scenes, many well known actors. Sure, Peter Jackson is known for doing stuff cheaper but man, its ridiculous when you think about it…

Originally Posted by joxer
The Boys goes into the same basket with Titans and Umbrella Academy. Groups of superheroes that are potentially (or really are) supervillains, in stories about people totally opposite from morally "clean" Avengers. Pick either one or all three and fun is guaranteed.

If you're searching for "the best" from this year, I'm also suggesting Love, Death & Robots.
A couple I recommend skipping (overrated) are Chernobyl and Baptiste. The first one presents itself as accurate but is too much of innacurate. The second one is drag-o-rama and wasted potential of it's parent show.

I watched half of Umbrella Academy.. it was OK'ish, story was kind of meh and i didn't care too much about the characters. haven't watched Titans yet. The Boys i watched in like 2 days, really loved all of it.

Love, Death, Robots was cool. I really liked Chernobyl, but yeah its perhaps a bit overrated..

Originally Posted by vurt
I really liked Chernobyl, but yeah its perhaps a bit overrated..

How is Chernobyl overrated?

Originally Posted by Beholder
How is Chernobyl overrated?

It was a good show, but i'm not sure i agree with all the 10/10, "best show ever" etc. I'd probably rate it 8/10, which still means i really liked it.

Originally Posted by Beholder
How is Chernobyl overrated?

What do you mean how. Check the score on imdb:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7366338/
95/100. Aka per imdb users it's the show with laserprecision historical accuracy and especially scientific accuracy - with only a couple of scenes that aren't good that Held it slightly below 10/10.

And then you either watch the show and start not believing it's bloated score or dig the internet only to learn that the show creators underestimated the audience. The audience that is silent and doesn't score stuff on imdb.

Here's one example:
https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-rando…fying-secrets/

Cliff Robinson arrived early for work on April 26, 1986, so he decided to go to the break room and grab some breakfast. He wanted to brush his teeth afterward, and that meant a trip to the building's changing room. To return to his office, protocol said he had to scan himself with a radiation detector, because the changing room was in the protected section of Sweden's Forsmark nuclear power plant. That's when the alarm went off. The detector had sniffed out some radioactive dust on his feet. Ooof.

It was a lot of dust -- enough that the plant couldn't just send Cliff over to the showers, but had to order a whole evacuation. Apparently, something had gone horribly wrong. But Cliff figured Forsmark couldn't be the source of the dust, because he hadn't gone to the "controlled area" of the plant, where all the fun stuff happens. He stayed behind as the plant was evacuated, brought a shoe to the lab for further analysis, and found that some of the elements responsible for the radiation didn't even exist in Forsmark. They were created through nuclear reactions of some kind. Had someone secretly set off a nuclear bomb?

The radiation had indeed come from a nuclear plant, just not Forsmark. Based on the wind direction, the dust had to have come from the southeast, all the way over the Baltic Sea. They considered Lithuania at first, but then eyes turned to a plant in Ukraine, almost 1,000 miles away. Once contacted, Moscow was like "Nah, we cool! Please stop asking immediately, or suffer consequences." Sweden said they were going to inform the International Atomic Energy Authority either way, and Moscow reluctantly admitted that, um, yeah, something had happened at Chernobyl.

The Chernobyl plant had just experienced history's worst nuclear disaster, as seen in the recent super-popular HBO miniseries Chernobyl. The show doesn't include anything about Cliff or Forsmark, but it does invent a new scientist in a distant nuclear plant who detects Chernobyl's radiation. HBO put her in Minsk, 250 miles from the plant, because setting the scene all the way in Sweden would have seemed unrealistic, right?

It's just one example.

Originally Posted by joxer
What do you mean how. Check the score on imdb:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7366338/
95/100. Aka per imdb users it's the show with laserprecision historical accuracy and especially scientific accuracy - with only a couple of scenes that aren't good that Held it slightly below 10/10.

I personally dont score TV-shows like that, if this was a documentary then sure, i'm more critical. For TV-shows that are based on true events i always take them with a huge grain of salt. People enjoyed the show, that's all that the IMDB score means.

Hmm as i remembered it, they did show Sweden as the one discovering it first.. i don't think the text is accurate.. i'll need to rewatch ep1 to know though.. i doubt the creator (a swede) would remove that part, it was quite the story here for sure..

Edit. no it seems to remove that part, Ulana is supposed to represent the ones discovering it.. i can see why they did that, you get a stronger connection to that particular character. i don't mind it too much. there are other characters here where they do this too. It obviously helps a lot with the tightness of the story and makes everything less confusing (e.g having to follow perhaps 30 various scientists and their part in the story.)
The overall story is still the same, but yes, the characters here are sometimes fictional to represent the larger whole of something.

Originally Posted by vurt
I personally dont score TV-shows like that, if this was a documentary then sure, i'm more critical. For TV-shows that are based on true events i always take them with a huge grain of salt. People enjoyed the show, that's all that the IMDB score means.

The reality is that people love nothing more than grabbing some number to trot out to support their sense of confirmation bias' either positive or negative. Hate a show/movie/game? Look for some site with user scores that trash it and use it to 'confirm' that it is bad (bonus points for getting to trash critics as well), Like something? Similarly, find some critics or user score to 'confirm' its excellence.

Chernobyl is very good from what I have seen (which was based on watching with son over break since we dont have HBO for yet another $15 monthly bill), that isn't my point at all. It is more that I have seen at least a dozen examples in the last week on the forums of people doing exactly that - "oh look, 9/10 = awesomeness" or "critics only did 6/10, they are worthless" and so on.

If imdb scored only fun factor, all horrors would skyrocket with at least +3 to their current scores.

As it happens, not everything is supposed to be enjoyable yet scores high, here's one example:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2070649/
It's highly disturbing both physical and psychological horror that imdb marks only as - drama? LOL
In it's core it has a concept of a greek tragedy to slap your face over and over. Not enjoyable, it drops you out of your safe zone then harasses you till the end which is far from happy.
If I didn't write before, somewhere I did, while Silenced does not have a happy ending in the movie, it caused a public outry and it's realworld counterpart did end in the most positive way possible at that point.

Chernobyl? It caused nothing of a sort. It was hyped for dunno what and in the end I didn't see anyone in the real world changed their opinion. I mean what, if someone nukes your neighborhood, thanks to the show's science, you can't get irradiated because you live thousands of miles away. So who cares when politicians are rattling nukes, right? It's firecrackers.
On the other hand, if someone does get irradiated, you shouldn't shake hands with them. If you do, you'll die. During next 24 hours if not sooner. Seriously?