The TV Series discussion thread

I also enjoyed that first series of American Horror Story, and the one that followed, I think it was Asylum? Then the diminishing returns really kicked in, the Carnival series started off well but got really odd, and I believe I stopped watching them after that. I really enjoyed those first two series, though.
 
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Last weekend something came up that made my wife and I think of ‘Bionic Woman’, and she asked if it was streaming - turns out it was free on E! for Roku. So we watched the first episode - it was awful, all melodrama and setup and handsy men around Lindsay Wagner. We decided to watch ‘Part 2’ and while it was better … not likely we will ever return! Some things are better left to nostalgia!

Also working through ‘Doctor Foster’ (BBC), in the midst of series 2. It is a wrought drama about the implosion of a family, revenge, subterfuge, gaslighting, manipulation, sex, and so on. Someone posted about it a long while ago here and didn’t like it ... personally we’re loving it - tense, anxiety driven, and difficult.
 
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Finished Hulu's Devs

Interesting story, about secret goings on at a top flight ai/computer company. What are they developing and will it destroy the world? Are the questions you ask yourself when you watch these type of shows.

The underlying theme involves the multiverse and free will, but to me they did not nail it when discussing these issues

but once again (like Warrior Nun) uninteresting protagonist. It seems like I am in some new kind of literary story telling. Where they try to turn the protagonist into a NEW type of anti-hero. I didnt like her, and her motivations were all over the map. But the overall acting in the series was good and the visuals were fantastic. The music was also good but the showrunners knew it and overplayed it way to much.

the show was written as a limited series so they are 8 and done.
 
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Great to see the 1989 version of Woman in Black making a comeback:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/aug/07/the-woman-in-black-britain-horror-film-herbert-wise
I watched it on TV over Christmas 1994 and it scared the crap out of me. :) It had a really malevolent atmosphere. I bet it's dated horribly now but I'm definitely up for watching it again and seeing how it compares to my memories.

For modern stuff, I'm currently wading through Vikings season three, and enjoying it even though all the characters are utter bastards. Or maybe because of that? Good fun.
 
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Been watching the new Twilight Zone. It's pretty terrible! Each episode is a meandering mess of poor writing and poorly executed themes. I can't help but thinking that if it had been kept to a half-hour format (each episode is 40-50 minutes long), perhaps the writers would have honed their stories into more focused parables. Instead, this new chapter in the show's history comes off as confused and longwinded.
 
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Whet's everybody's opinion of the Twilight Zones? For me original series is a classic, 80's was good but marred by sub-par effects, 90's I never saw, current 1st season was a god-awful wokefest and the 2nd was still terrible even after they toned it down.
 
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Whet's everybody's opinion of the Twilight Zones? For me original series is a classic, 80's was good but marred by sub-par effects, 90's I never saw, current 1st season was a god-awful wokefest and the 2nd was still terrible even after they toned it down.

Well TOS was a classic but they did have one season (4) where they tried the one hour format. And of course the show suffered greatly. Not a jewel (not even zirconia) in the bunch. But season 5 had a bunch of classic episodes like:

Nightmare at 20,000 feet (Shatner)
Living Doll (Telly Savales)
The Masks (wealthy dying rich guy make people wear ugly masks)
The Bewitching pool (kids escape from their pool to a magic pond place where you can eat candy all day)

and there were more. The year they did the one hour shows their brains took a break but they came back in season 5 to codify their status as perhaps the best TV show ever made. The only good thing that came out of season 4 was the opening title sequence that ultimately became the defacto opening sequence for series overall and became iconic itself.

"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. A dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone."

It's funny, when ever I make a best tv show list I always seem to forget Twilight Zone, but then somebody reminds me of the show, I say OH YEA, and then I have to redo my list to put TW at on near the top of my revised list.

I liked both the 80s and 90s version of the Zone, but of the two versions only the 80s version had classic tale worthy of the original series. It was called A matter of Minutes, and it has a spectacular explanation for how time really works. lol.
 
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I'm actually re-watching Kolchak: The Night Stalker with a friend, and enjoying this show way more than any other telly that I've viewed in years. Darren McGavin was just so perfect for this role!! Back when television shows actually told stories without trying to jam some agenda down the viewers' throats, imagine that.
 
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I'm actually re-watching Kolchak: The Night Stalker with a friend, and enjoying this show way more than any other telly that I've viewed in years. Darren McGavin was just so perfect for this role!! Back when television shows actually told stories without trying to jam some agenda down the viewers' throats, imagine that.

The even managed to stick Darren/original Night Stalker, into a few X file episodes, where he had to explain stuff to the whippersnapper Mulder. My fav was The Unnatural.
 
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And lest I forget, I did try viewing a newer show the other day, an animated version of Star Trek called, "Lower Decks". And wow.....I thought no Trek show could be worse than STD or Discard, and man, was I wrong. Dreadfully wrong! Whoever made this thing had the perfect template, the animated Trek episodes from the mid-seventies, that were great stories and added to the Trek universe as a whole. This show is the diametric opposite. I made the sheer hubris mistake of watching multiple episodes of STD and Discard, hoping they might improve, and feeling bitter after the fact. This time I stopped at just the one episode, and my brain literally thanked me. Avoid this drek at all costs, and to this day there remains no Star Trek worth watching since Enterprise.
 
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And lest I forget, I did try viewing a newer show the other day, an animated version of Star Trek called, "Lower Decks". And wow…..

Plus they are using Family Guy animation. Which, imo, is not a good thing. Ill catch up on those shows however, (TW2, Picard2 and Lower Deck) when CBS all access runs the free month in about 9 months or what not. Yup . . . I'm that anxious. lol.
 
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You'd be better off watching paint dry, they are all that bad. It's just so awful it almost seems deliberate, like these folks despise Star Trek or something. Truly, rewatch Deep Space Nine, the original series, next generation or Babylon five for shows that are actually worth watching.
 
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And lest I forget, I did try viewing a newer show the other day, an animated version of Star Trek called, "Lower Decks". And wow…..I thought no Trek show could be worse than STD or Discard, and man, was I wrong.

STD and Discard. Harsh, yet fair. :biggrin:
 
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The problem with CBS - Star Trek, is that they forgot that there was always a small amount of comedic elements in the generally good sci fi story telling. Discovery was as dry as Toast, and Picard was just a tad less so. (although I like Picard enough to want to see season 2).

Except there was one good comedic story in Discovery when the bad guy discovered a weapon that could kill you and reverse time. And he kept on killing the captain over and over again in a number of hideous yet hilarious ways.

Cant speak for Lower Decks because I haven't got my free 30 day trial period yet . . . .

Well, I am in the middle of my Dark Marathon. Interesting show, but I have to ask, why do so many of the characters in this show have to go off and do things/wander by themselves. I am reminded of a bit in Mystery Science Theater 3000, when a group of kids were heading home and one of the kids said he was going to take a short cut through the GRAVEYARD. The MST3000 crew rang out in unison . . . .. ding, ding, ding, ding, ding . . . VICTIM!!!

.
 
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For me, the key problem with the new Treks is that Alex Kurtzman and chums are demons sent to the Earth to lower the standards.
 
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I only watched a few episodes of the new Trek before giving up. The lack of subtlety and poor characters put me off.

I lasted a bit longer with Picard. I really wanted to like Picard; I thought the premise was really interesting and Patrick Stewart is great. But they'd somehow turned Picard into a loser. In TNG he was a smart guy, good at reading people and situations, a leader. In Picard he was none of those things - led by others and events and unable to see that he was embarrassing himself (eg when he went into Star Fleet to ask them to give him a new command)... even, dare I say it, a bit whiny. If the writers had meant this to be a result of his fading powers in old age, it could have worked - but I don't think that was the case. Other people still acted as if he was an impressive bloke, and he was unrealistically hard for a pensioner. Meh. I eventually had to admit defeat and drop it, a genuine missed opportunity I think.
 
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We watched Sorjonen, a finish series about a police detective who is weird, excels in associations and is autistic. Yet he does have a wife an daughter, who can find the stamina to stay with him.
I liked the show and most of the cast. It has stories that expand over 2-3 episodes and there is some thought put into those stories as much of it appears to be connected somehow. There are a few story lines that continue through all three of the seasons and everything appeares to be wrapped up at the end of season 3. I don't know if there will be a season 4, but from the story side of things there doesn't need to be.

We watched all 3 seasons in a row and I feel that it would have been better for us to space the seasons a bit more. The autism of Sorjonen and the sometimes silly actions of his daughter stack up and almost got to the point where it became annoying. I think we would have consumed it better with a bit more time between the seasons.
Despite that, I can really recommend it.
 
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