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TV Tuesdays Free Talk
Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
I finished Mr Inbetween recently and can highly suggest it to anyone who is into crime shows revolving around a violent anti-hero. It's an Australian dark comedy-drama about a hitman. It's very funny, even as a Brit with a passing knowledge of Australian culture, very violent and incredibly well acted.
I then quickly worked my way through Fallout, really enjoyed it, I've got my issues with it (nothing to do with timelimes or canon nonsense, that doesn't bother me, even as a huge fan of the series). It's more that some of the dialogue is a little clunky and some of the acting isn't that great at points but a really great start, and I'm excited for season two.
Now I'm working my way through Barry (another dark comedy-drama about a hitman, seem to have a thing for those at the moment). I'm loving it, since Saturday morning I've gotten through Seasons 1-3 and watched the first episode of season 4 on my lunch today. It's unbelievably good, might be one of my favourite shows ever and I've not even finished it, it's just incredible!
Yeah the chemistry between Lucy and Max wasn't great. Agreed on Max's actor being wooden, I don't know what it was but it felt like he just had a confused look on his face 90% of the time he was on screen.
I liked Ella Purnell as Lucy, she was great fun but I had issues with her acting at points as well. The part that sticks out to me is when...
Spoilers
The Ghoul cuts her finger off with a hunting knife. She doesn't react, like at all...
I can understand a level of shock dulling the pain but outside of a look of mild shock she barely reacts to her finger being clean chopped off.
Walton Goggins was great though, especially considering he had to play two parts, Cooper in pre-war America and The Ghoul in the Wasteland. I've heard he's awesome in Justified, which is another show on my list so if he plays a gunslinger in that then he'll have won me over already.
I didn't mind Max's actor - I can see why you say he's got a confused look on his face, but I looked at it as more of a pained look.
About Justified - that is the role that learned me Walton Goggins' name and he absolutely excels!!
I couldn't stand Maximus/Titus until I decided to start viewing him as a player in a video game going through his first playthrough, and that made it so much better. He doesn't really understand the mechanics of the world, he seems to not know a lot of things that Thaddeus knows, which would make sense if they didn't go over that in the tutorial. It made him a lot more fun.
I haven't played any of the Fallout games, so that might not track with what the experience of playing them is like.
That's a pretty good way to explain it but so is Lucy. The show has two fish out of water characters but Lucy is more interesting because she actually shows self-reliance whereas Max is just stumbling his way through everything. That combined with him being selfish and a bit spineless at the start left a pretty sour taste in my mouth. He's a hero in a way that anyone might luck into being, with a tank wrapped around him. And he's also dumb which isn't an appealing trait.
That said, he's a fine character to have in the show, it'll be interesting to see how they use him in the upcoming season(s).
I think Lucy works just fine as an actual TV show protagonist. She's got interesting flaws, clear motivation, some fun traits that make her likable. She doesn't really need a perspective shift. Titus is completely unlikable, but if you imagine that he doesn't think anyone in this universe is real, he just wants the "Honorable Knight" ending, and he knows he has to get the armor to do it, his decisions become a lot more relatable.
Started Watching The Shield, Finished 5 Seasons of it. I have watched most of the mainstream and popular ones. Heard it's a very good and underrated Series and Now I agree with it.
Character development is good and it will keep you hooked.
The Shield is one of my absolute favs, despite often being forgotten about when people talk about the best Prestige TV, gritty crime dramas, since everyone tends to focus so much on Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul, Peaky Blinders, and Ozark. The Shield was also my first intro to Walton Goggins, who is one of my favorite actors these days, and was also absolute amazing in another great crime drama show, Justified. In fact, Justified actually might just be my favorite of the bunch, even though it's less gritty and far more comedic than the rest. :P
p.s. Oz is another great, often forgotten about one which is also well worth watching. Deadwood too.
I'm finally getting around to Tokyo Vice. I really like this series. I really don't have a lot to add. I hate the trope of 'I need to go to the bathroom... so I can snoop through your house and leave things moved...' -- its gotta go.
X-Men 97 is pretty great. I love the theme and I'm so glad they kept it. I wish more superhero shit would go to this style.
Once I finish up Tokyo Vice, I'll be on to Sugar -- and I'm going in completely blind. All I know is that its got a decent cast.
You jumped in on Tokyo Vice at the right time. I watched it when it first came out then waited several years for season two and now I have no idea wtf is going on. Is season two worth a full season one rewatch? Or should I just find a Previous Leon for it?
oh! I saw the first season as it came out and waited and waited. I also read the book, which is pretty good.
I wouldn't bother rewatching S01 -- just read the wikipedia shit for S01 and you'll be fine. Here's a recap :)
Definitely read the book if you're into this. The series takes a lot of liberties. Not in a bad way, but its just different.
Shogun - 6/10
It sadly didn't quite grab me in the way that I expected from the hype. It was pretty good for the first couple of episodes - never great though. After episode 4 especially, I remember thinking it just boring and I think this is where the illusion of a grand world fell apart for me. It zoomed in way too much on very few characters, and at that point, the GoT comparison no longer held for me. It picked up a little bit again towards the penultimate episode, but the final episode itself was just so anti climactic - possibly the best example I've ever seen of why you should "show, don't tell".
Can't say I understand the high rating it gets. Again, it was rather meandering to the point that some episodes were really a struggle to get through. The constant bowing and drawn out politicking scenes that featured endless niceties, politeness, rituals... I did not need to see that repeated multiple times per episode lol - my theory is that since I also generally dislike anime, and am not used to Japanese media at all, that is mainly why I didn't like those parts. It's not that I don't get it, by the way. I am 100% aware of what they are trying to do, and I understand it well - it just didn't land for me. The main character became kind of grating too. It's not all bad of course - good things are for example the environments, costuming, props, set design, etc. which all allowed for becoming easily immersed. I just wish the story was better.
Fallout - 5/10
I never played the games which a friend did say that because of that, I definitely missed out on things. I wanted to watch it though because it's always fun to (finally!!) see video game adaptations. It had some mysterious parts that felt like Silo which I really liked, and Walton Goggins did a really good job and reminded me of Ed Harris in Westworld (which is a huge compliment if anybody didn't watch that one). It was also super scary, like there was way too much gore and creepiness which I suppose could be a me-problem, but yeah. I realize I have very few intelligent things to say/review/criticism of it but it was just a pretty mid show for me.