Recommend me something to watch!

[Blastronaut 1333]

57 minutes ago, Billy Whitehurst said:

I thought Game of Thrones was totally overrated

............

Anyone mentioning it in the same breath as The Wire, The Sopranos and Breaking Bad should only be given restricted access to this thread.

 

Totally agree. I actually enjoyed the first few seasons and the Tolkien fan in me had invested in it enough to get the first book.  

 

My bugbear with Tolkien was all the sporadic pages of (mostly shit) poems and prose for padding. Martin seemed to ditch that in favour of just padding shit out with pages of intricately describing chainmail and armour. For me it's just halfway between Tolkien and Rowling with added tits. Wanted to like, even enjoyed the first few seasons and bits of (what little I managed) of the books. But it all fell apart quite quickly a lot like the aforementioned Lost. 

 

Wire, Sopranos and BB were on another level for me. Need to give a shout out to Oz and Northern Exposure for setting us up for this "golden age of TV" but Oz hasn't aged quite as well and NE is hard to find.

 

 

[Howmanheyman 32606]

"before, and way before."

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Alex 34725]

1 hour ago, Monkeys Fist said:

Let’s not forget the episode with Chrissy and Paulie in the woods. 
 

Should’ve won a comedy award that year. 

Pine Barrens I think it’s called 

[Monkeys Fist 41931]

That’s the one. 

[OTF 7215]

11 hours ago, Blastronaut said:

 

Totally agree. I actually enjoyed the first few seasons and the Tolkien fan in me had invested in it enough to get the first book.  

 

My bugbear with Tolkien was all the sporadic pages of (mostly shit) poems and prose for padding. Martin seemed to ditch that in favour of just padding shit out with pages of intricately describing chainmail and armour. For me it's just halfway between Tolkien and Rowling with added tits. Wanted to like, even enjoyed the first few seasons and bits of (what little I managed) of the books. But it all fell apart quite quickly a lot like the aforementioned Lost. 

 

Wire, Sopranos and BB were on another level for me. Need to give a shout out to Oz and Northern Exposure for setting us up for this "golden age of TV" but Oz hasn't aged quite as well and NE is hard to find.

 

 

 

Why no mention of Better Call Saul?

[Ayatollah Hermione 13762]

On the subject of TV finales, Breaking Bad’s is preposterous  Unless you subscribe to Norm MacDonald’s theory

Edited January 24, 2023 by Ayatollah Hermione

[The Fish 10674]

Too many names? 

 

Sounds to me like some people are a bit dim.

 

 

[Dr Gloom 21760]

12 hours ago, Howmanheyman said:

 

 

There's so many funny bits in it but it's a great window into the human psyche of these people but people in general, the manipulation, the taking advantage of others and of moving into potentially advantageous positions and licking people's arse, especially Tony wouldn't be out of place in a royal court of Henry VIII or probably present day. Tony is both powerful, switched but incredibly needy and a bit of a cunt to put it mildly, funny how you can both like him, root for him but want him brought down within an episode. Superb series albeit the odd quiet or slow episode, the odd hallucination scene or 'ghost appearance' to guilt ridden characters just add to it. 

In the history of TV drama, there’s everything that happened before the sopranos and everything that has happened since. it was pretty much the first great box set and kicked off the “golden age of tv”.

[Dr Gloom 21760]

12 hours ago, Blastronaut said:

 

Totally agree. I actually enjoyed the first few seasons and the Tolkien fan in me had invested in it enough to get the first book.  

 

My bugbear with Tolkien was all the sporadic pages of (mostly shit) poems and prose for padding. Martin seemed to ditch that in favour of just padding shit out with pages of intricately describing chainmail and armour. For me it's just halfway between Tolkien and Rowling with added tits. Wanted to like, even enjoyed the first few seasons and bits of (what little I managed) of the books. But it all fell apart quite quickly a lot like the aforementioned Lost. 

 

Wire, Sopranos and BB were on another level for me. Need to give a shout out to Oz and Northern Exposure for setting us up for this "golden age of TV" but Oz hasn't aged quite as well and NE is hard to find.

 

 

I re-read lotr with my boy after he enjoyed the hobbit but we both had enough about half way through. Whole chapters dedicated to detailed descriptions of the flora and fauna- tedious 

[Renton 21055]

16 minutes ago, Ayatollah Hermione said:

On the subject of TV finales, Breaking Bad’s is preposterous  Unless you subscribe to Norm MacDonald’s theory

 

How's it preposterous? I mean the whole thing is far fetched and contived in mechanics (the worst bit in the series being the plane crash probably) but for me it was a highly satisfying Hollywood ending with all the important aspects of the series - character developments, fate of main characters, emotional and redemptive issues etc, finished perfectly in Hollywood style. Although arguably the true end of BB was BCS which was the "real" tragic ending. The Jessie spin off was completely unnecessary mind. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Renton

[Toonpack 9112]

Never got the hype about the Wire tbh, first season was very good, but after that - meh ? Gave up somewhere in second season.

 

Not enough names in it for me, probably.

[Renton 21055]

Just now, Toonpack said:

Never got the hype about the Wire tbh, first season was very good, but after that - meh ? Gave up somewhere in second season.

 

Not enough names in it for me, probably.

 

I think I watched some of that but honestly can't remember. Was it from a police pov? If so I'm not interested. Nonody's mentioned Narcos yet either. This was narrated by the cop pov but the real protagonists were the underworld characters. Really enjoyed the Escobar series. Mexico was okay but got a bit smey by that point. 

[Monkeys Fist 41931]

5 minutes ago, Toonpack said:

Never got the hype about the Wire tbh, first season was very good, but after that - meh ? Gave up somewhere in second season.

 

Not enough names in it for me, probably.

[The Fish 10674]

2 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

I think I watched some of that but honestly can't remember. Was it from a police pov? If so I'm not interested. Nonody's mentioned Narcos yet either. This was narrated by the cop pov but the real protagonists were the underworld characters. Really enjoyed the Escobar series. Mexico was okay but got a bit smey by that point. 

 

Not solely, no. A lot is from the pov of the kids on the streets, their bosses, and other assorted characters. Even the Police pov isn't particularly flattering about the police as an institution.

 

The Wire is, for me, long form story telling at it's finest. 

[Renton 21055]

The most scarey night of my life was spent in a hovel of a hotel in Baltimore as it happens. Was travelling around the NE states just booking hotels when I got to each city, which back then (way before the internet as well) was incredibly cheap. Unfortuately all the normal hotels in Baltimore were full because of some big baseball game, so I ended up in this place with the most scary characters I've ever seen, openly shooting up in the corridors etc. Locked myself in the room with people banging on the door all night until sunlight and got the fuck out of dodge. What a shit hole that city was outside the harbour. 

[Ayatollah Hermione 13762]

1 hour ago, Renton said:

 

How's it preposterous? I mean the whole thing is far fetched and contived in mechanics (the worst bit in the series being the plane crash probably) but for me it was a highly satisfying Hollywood ending with all the important aspects of the series - character developments, fate of main characters, emotional and redemptive issues etc, finished perfectly in Hollywood style. Although arguably the true end of BB was BCS which was the "real" tragic ending. The Jessie spin off was completely unnecessary mind. 

Doesn’t he build a massive machine gun in his car to mow down a bunch of Nazis? All after poisoning their leader by, somehow, sneaking poison into a sugar sachet? All while sitting in a diner as a hugely wanted man? It’s literally Alan Partridge’s “luckily, I had the last laugh” in an extreme fashion. The only way you can justify it is if Walt is succumbing to his illness and it’s the last fever dream of a dying man

[Renton 21055]

Just now, Ayatollah Hermione said:

Doesn’t he build a massive machine gun in his car to mow down a bunch of Nazis? All after poisoning their leader by, somehow, sneaking poison into a sugar sachet? All while sitting in a diner as a hugely wanted man? It’s literally Alan Partridge’s “luckily, I had the last laugh” in an extreme fashion. The only way you can justify it is if Walt is succumbing to his illness and it’s the last fever dream of a dying man

 Well firstly, no, you have to take it literally, because of the Jessie sequel if nothing else. I don't see any issue at all with the poisoning of Lldia. He's showed himself to be adept at poisoning plenty of times before. Iirc he was incognito and both him and Lydia were both always very secretive anyway, neither wanting to be identified. 

The DIY machine gun was a bit far fetched. Not so much that he constructed it, after all he was a genius and would have been planning something like this for months with nothing else to do whilst shacked up in a hut in New Hampshire. But the plan was pretty unlikely to succeed because of all the things that could have gone wrong. My take is that in this Universe, one of infinite parallel Universes, it did. It wasn't so implausible as to counteract all the good aspects of the ending for me anyway. I liked the ending but there were some epiusodes in that final series - Ozymandias stands out - which for me were the high water mark so far of drama on TV. 

[Toonpack 9112]

14 minutes ago, Ayatollah Hermione said:

Doesn’t he build a massive machine gun in his car to mow down a bunch of Nazis? All after poisoning their leader by, somehow, sneaking poison into a sugar sachet? All while sitting in a diner as a hugely wanted man? It’s literally Alan Partridge’s “luckily, I had the last laugh” in an extreme fashion. The only way you can justify it is if Walt is succumbing to his illness and it’s the last fever dream of a dying man

 

I didn't realise it was supposed to be a documentary !!

 

As entertainment goes, it was utterly brilliant.

[Christmas Tree 4669]

Started Fargo last night. Love it  

[Alex 34725]

4 hours ago, Dr Gloom said:

I re-read lotr with my boy after he enjoyed the hobbit but we both had enough about half way through. Whole chapters dedicated to detailed descriptions of the flora and fauna- tedious 

The Fellowship of the Ring starts off quite lighthearted but by the end of The Return of the King the prose is so dense. It’s like reading the Old Testament or something. The films as well. I think I fell asleep on about 3 separate occasions trying to watch the end of the last one. 

[Alex 34725]

2 hours ago, Toonpack said:

 

I didn't realise it was supposed to be a documentary !!

 

As entertainment goes, it was utterly brilliant.

I thought it was class but I preferred The Wire and The Sopranos because of their realism, which was kind of what took them to a different level imo. Obviously it’s fiction but BB has pretensions of realism too. I guess Tony Soprano is always an sociopath but Walter White’s transformation isn’t believable. It’s a bit like criticising Cruyff for not being as good as Pele though 

[Gemmill 44112]

Mild mannered chemist Renton blatantly fancies himself as a bit of a Walter White. 

 

More of a Bunsen Honeydew if the truth be told. 

[Alex 34725]

 Beaker is one of the greatest comedy characters of all time btw 

[Renton 21055]

23 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

Mild mannered chemist Renton blatantly fancies himself as a bit of a Walter White. 

 

More of a Bunsen Honeydew if the truth be told. 

 

Well I had to look that up. He looks a bit like you tbh.

 

In response to Alex, (btw ther is potential spoilers here just in case anybody hasn't watched BB), I don't think Walt's transformation is at all unbelievable as it's so perfectly paced and I can see his rationale at every point. He's been dealt a shit sandwich in life and then gets a diagnosis of terminal cancer. With literally nothing to lose he transforms himself under the bogus inner claim he's doing it for his family, and attempts to justify his transformation at each step on the way. First manufacturing meth, well why not? If he doesn't others will and anyway the pharma companies are no better extorting their patients with new chemotherapy drugs. Then he kills Krazy 8 in cold blood. Well it was him or them. Then he lets Jane die, and at this point he is just beyond redemption, but he still keeps trying to justify himself. He's a good man, it's just the circumstances he is in. It's all for his family. Which he finally admits is bullshit only in the last episode. He did it for himself, nobody else. And the same story is told but with a different ending for Jimmy McGill, but you can throw in that BCS is actually a beautiful love story as well.

 

So for me it is one hell of a morality tale which begs so many philosophical questions about who we all really are. Was Walt inherently evil all the time or did his circumstances actually change him to the monster he became?  It's the ordinariness of Walt's baseline state that fascinates me. Whereas in the Soprano's, episode 1, Tony is an established fucking cunt. I'm guessing he's not going to get any better, maybe he will get worse. I've a lot to go through before I find out, and obviously can't make a comparison between the two if I don't. If I ever get a terminal diagnosis btw, the World had better look out @Gemmill. 

[Gemmill 44112]

 these essays defending Walter White. You're BUNSEN HONEYDEW, BITCH!