The TV Series discussion thread

I'd say Olyphant gets to spread his wings a bit more than he did in Deadwood, with Justified. That relationship he has with Coggins is well worth following them both to any show they might do in the future together.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
I love Deadwood and I love Justified. Keep in mind with Justified that season one is a bit of anomaly. In season 1 it's mostly unconnected cases, like he's Rockford or something, but they quickly dropped that format and went to having one major storyline per season.

I think Olyphant is great (he even shows good comedic chops at times, e.g. in The Santa Clarita Diet or interviews), but I never got into Justified because I thought that's exactly the type of show it was. Good to know it transforms into something meatier - another to add to the watch list!

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
Timothy Olyphant

Never cared about him.

It's all the side characters that made me fall in love with Justified.
Olyphant's role didn't matter to me one single bit in that show.

Justified is well positioned with a fine ensemble cast, as well as guest stars. They made some really good choices for casting throughout the entire series.

This is a (partially dubbed) documentary about the Beatles years : https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/079400…t-days-a-week/
I think it catches that "mania" very well.
One of the best things in it is Whoopy Goldberg talking about her experience with the Beathles, which is a very emotional thing, and the other very interesting thing is the talk by them at the end of the documentary … Like reading and answering fan letters.
The whole documentary shows very well how they evolved.
I have no idea whether this is available in English language as well …

Having seen this Beatles documentary, it occurred to me that I have never heard of a documentary regarding Billy Preston.
I feel ashamed that no-one ever did one, and he isn't even only barely seen in that last rooftop concert, even although he played there with them. Who was responsible for putting the cameras there ?

You probably never saw a doc about Pete Best too.
The actual reason why he was kicked out remains a mystery.

I finished watching the first series of Hunters, I didn't see that shocker coming at the end, and I'm not sure if it actually works, at least in my head. Regardless, it's a fine show, and if there's a second series, I'll be checking it out.

Finished Deadwood, and Deadwood, the movie.

It was really solid. Enjoyed the series very much. Too bad they cancelled it after season 3. Audiences really have no idea what quality is.

Anyway, the movie on ther other hand was a bit of mixed bag for me. The beginning and middle was good, but it was obvious it was mostly a stroll down memory lane. What I didn't like was the ending. It really felt rushed, and with no wrap-up to the conflict. Hearst is still as powerful as he always was. The town is still in danger. So, what's the wrapup? There wasn't really any. Aside from a few characters.

Also, for some reason Swearenge, who was my favorite character of the series, was really underutilized in the movie.

I would agree that the HBO movie is far weaker than any of the episodes, by a large margin. It's almost like perhaps Milch was simply going through the motions and completing a contract, in comparison to how good the earlier episodes were. The best episodes for me, by far, are ones that feature Wild Bill, Jane, and Charlie.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
I would agree that the HBO movie is far weaker than any of the episodes, by a large margin. It's almost like perhaps Milch was simply going through the motions and completing a contract, in comparison to how good the earlier episodes were. The best episodes for me, by far, are ones that feature Wild Bill, Jane, and Charlie.

The reason I'm even more sad is that it started very promising, and as the conflict escalated it got even better. But the two main things that brought it down is Swearengen basically being on life support, that kneecapped the whole movie; and the ending which didn't really resolve anything. It basically ended like an episode where you would expect the next episode to pick up and continue. But it didn't. This was the one movie that was supposed to pick up and wrap up. It failed to wrap up. It behaved like a normal episode, but over 2h.

I'm not sure what happened. Because imo it was written a good as any Deadwood episode. So I can't really fault Milch for that. But it felt like they either ran out of budget, or some disagreement ensued after it was greenlit, and it never wrapped up as it could have? No idea. Also weird, that it's generally getting great reviews across the board. Like either no one wants to admit the faults. Or people have been so desperate for some new Deadwood, that they'd rather praise it.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
This was the one movie that was supposed to pick up and wrap up. It failed to wrap up. It behaved like a normal episode, but over 2h.

Where did you get that impression? It would have been wildly out of character for the movie to wrap everything up in a bow. You mention Hearst being as powerful at the end as he ever was. Well, yeah. He's George Hearst. He's a historical figure. Deadwood was never interested in presenting heroes who could root and toot their way past the ugly realities of frontier life.

The movie did what I wanted it to do: produce a coda for the characters and a show I loved.

Definitely looking forward to this even if I didn't like the last season as much as the previous ones.

The second season of Stranger Things was the one I didn't care for. Season 3 was for me at least a partial return to form. I'm looking forward to season 4 also.

I'll definitely watch it. It's a bit of a frustrating show for me, as they do many things very well, and just fall down a bit on stuff that could be easily improved. I'd love to see them do a season that really knocks it out of the park.

I thought the original season knocked it out of the park. I liked season 2 as well, but they injected a little too much silliness into season 3 for my taste. They just need to go back to what made the show good to begin with.

Been watching a show you'll either love or HATE. If you grew up with and enjoyed the old movie musicals (Oklahoma, Carousel, Brigadoon Sound of Music, Music Man, Guys and Dolls, etc) then you will really enjoy Schmigadoon which is a 6 part half hour parody of all those old movies. The parody of SoM's Do-Re-Mi is jaw-droppingly brilliant!! It's light and fluffy and even ridiculous as it pokes gentle fun at all those musical cliches, but it also brought back a lot of memories.

I thought the first series of Stranger Things was excellent, and the more it went on the weaker it became. I'll hope that this newest series will be much more like the first and not so much like the second or third.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Where did you get that impression? It would have been wildly out of character for the movie to wrap everything up in a bow.

You could argue that the the series “ended� the conflict with Hearst, and the movie just reopened it, and never closed it again.

So what if Hearst is a historical figure? As they took liberties with other characters in how they wrote their deaths (ex, Swearengen), they could either have written Hearst’s death or somehow ended the conflict. It felt like the movies just re-opened a can of worms and left it like that. That’s my only gripe.

If Hearst is still as powerful as he is portrayed, how is he left alone in Deadwood to be arrested again by Bullock. And before that, beaten by the mob. I see no way that would happen historically. So they took plenty of creative freedom. I just wanted a little bit more to, at least, not just let Hearst loose on Deadwood again but not show it at all.

Anyway, we'll just agree to disagree. Regardless, it was nice seeing the characters one final time.

Same for me about Stranger Things, I felt it was a very good start then going down and becoming silly. Hopefully they come back to this original sparkle in season 4, but it's a long wait until then.