The Official TV Thread

[OldTimeHockey]

Anyone who hasn't watched Loudermilk on Prime needs to check it out. The first season is great. The second season takes a step back and then the 3rd is hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYgcz-YGQ68

 

[Kin]

Invincible on Prime is pretty nuts

It's something where I'm familiar with the book so some of the nuttier aspects weren't a surprise but I like that they kept very faithful to the book's art style and contrasted the sort of bright colourful world with some of the terrible stuff going on.

It's funny though that when so many other streaming services are giving us straight up superhero stories Amazon Prime seems to be building their brand on this and The Boys.

 

[herman]

Invincible on Prime is pretty nuts

It's something where I'm familiar with the book so some of the nuttier aspects weren't a surprise but I like that they kept very faithful to the book's art style and contrasted the sort of bright colourful world with some of the terrible stuff going on.

It's funny though that when so many other streaming services are giving us straight up superhero stories Amazon Prime seems to be building their brand on this and The Boys.

There is obviously a market for metacommentary on superhero/villain stuff since it has permeated the mainstream market for just over a decade. It's a pretty astounding voice cast roster too.

 

[Kin]

There is obviously a market for metacommentary on superhero/villain stuff since it has permeated the mainstream market for just over a decade. It's a pretty astounding voice cast roster too.

The Boys always tended to strike me, at least in book form, as metacommentary only in the sense that the commentary was the author hated super heroes(something the rest of his stuff supports). Invincible doesn't quite reach that level, I suppose, but there sure is a lot of bad stuff happening to super heroes on that service. 

 

[CarltonTheBear]

https://twitter.com/AppleTV/status/1384556686975717377

 

[Kin]

Some things I've seen recently and would recommend:

For All Mankind - It's an alternate history drama about astronauts. It's good!

Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet - A comedy about a games studio from two of the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia guys. I think it started pretty slowly but got very good.

Gangs of London - A Crime Drama about...well, Gangs of London. I didn't love it but it might be worth it for the action scenes alone.

Inside by Bo Burnham - A Comedy Special on Netflix recorded in his house during the pandemic. It's good!

Dave - This was a weird one. A comedy from the rapper known as Lil' Dicky whose music I tend to not like very much but the show is really, really good.

 

[Deebo]

Some things I've seen recently and would recommend:

For All Mankind - It's an alternate history drama about astronauts. It's good!

Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet - A comedy about a games studio from two of the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia guys. I think it started pretty slowly but got very good.

Gangs of London - A Crime Drama about...well, Gangs of London. I didn't love it but it might be worth it for the action scenes alone.

Inside by Bo Burnham - A Comedy Special on Netflix recorded in his house during the pandemic. It's good!

Dave - This was a weird one. A comedy from the rapper known as Lil' Dicky whose music I tend to not like very much but the show is really, really good.

I love Dave, its coming back soon, on the 16th.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

Some things I've seen recently and would recommend:

For All Mankind - It's an alternate history drama about astronauts. It's good!

Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet - A comedy about a games studio from two of the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia guys. I think it started pretty slowly but got very good.

Gangs of London - A Crime Drama about...well, Gangs of London. I didn't love it but it might be worth it for the action scenes alone.

Inside by Bo Burnham - A Comedy Special on Netflix recorded in his house during the pandemic. It's good!

Dave - This was a weird one. A comedy from the rapper known as Lil' Dicky whose music I tend to not like very much but the show is really, really good.

Thanks for the tips, will look for all. I've also enjoyed Mythic Quest. Oh, and thanks to you and others for recommending Ted Lasso, what a great show.

 

[Bender]

I'm currently on my first go around of Breaking Bad, but will definitely need a new stock of shows soon. I really should also finish the Wire... Does the Sopranos hold up?

 

[Kin]

I love Dave, its coming back soon, on the 16th.

I saw. It's a weird one to talk about to people because his music can be kind of immature but it somehow was both one of the better portrayals of relationships(both romantic and not) and one of the most sympathetic looks at mental illness on TV while still being really, really funny.

 

[Kin]

Does the Sopranos hold up?

I think so. I think it's still probably my choice for the best TV Drama of all time. Some people I think get kind of snobby about thinking you need to watch it in the "right way" and look at it as a character study about a terrible person and you shouldn't care about the visceral thrills but I really like that if you just want to watch it for the Mob drama, it's great for that. A snapshot of sort of the decline of American society...it's great as that. It's also, at times, incredibly funny.

It's slow at times so if you're just in it for an action-packed mob tale...there's a lot of eating your vegetables before you get to have your ice cream.  Your mileage for his wife and kids or its examination of the nature of therapy may vary but I would 100% recommend anyone seeing and would be fairly surprised if anybody didn't find something they really liked in it.

 

[Bender]

Does the Sopranos hold up?

I think so. I think it's still probably my choice for the best TV Drama of all time. Some people I think get kind of snobby about thinking you need to watch it in the "right way" and look at it as a character study about a terrible person and you shouldn't care about the visceral thrills but I really like that if you just want to watch it for the Mob drama, it's great for that. A snapshot of sort of the decline of American society...it's great as that. It's also, at times, incredibly funny.

It's slow at times so if you're just in it for an action-packed mob tale...there's a lot of eating your vegetables before you get to have your ice cream.  Your mileage for his wife and kids or its examination of the nature of therapy may vary but I would 100% recommend anyone seeing and would be fairly surprised if anybody did find something they really liked in it.

Nice! One of my favourite movies of all time is Goodfellas and I don't know why I'm a sucker for a good mafia story so I think I'll give it a shot.

Speaking of shows in the best all time convo, just want to comment on my 10+yr lateness on Breaking Bad. I like it a lot, currently in Season 4 (finally Pinkman is doing something other than being a human punching bag), but I don't know if I'd peg it at best all time. Definitely in the Top 10 though, maybe I'll come around by the end of it.

 

[mr grieves]

I'm currently on my first go around of Breaking Bad, but will definitely need a new stock of shows soon. I really should also finish the Wire... Does the Sopranos hold up?

I saw it when I was Meadow's age, and it was a good mob show and character study of a bad dude. Now that I'm more like Tony's age and my folks are like Livia's, I thought I'd make it the pandemic watch, and I found it to be a lot richer. Besides the hilarity and horror of the family dynamic, the whole America-circling-the-drain thing is much more deeply felt in the 2020s (we are in it, baby!).

Main thing I noticed watching it was how it looks in comparison to everything that came after. We've all seen a lot of shows made in the wake of The Sopranos, prestige dramas like those you've listed, but re-watching it I'm really struck at how much unlike those shows The Sopranos is.

Part of it has to do with the attitude toward the characters. Breaking Bad, for instance, really was impressed by the terrible glory of Walter White and made Jesse Pinkman a tragic figure; Tony and Chris are, among a few other things, just kind of awful, miserable people. But besides an appropriate level of contempt for the characters, the writers never impose any limits that'd be dictated by their narrative functions and are given lots of freedom to just write great bits. Give me AJ on Nitch over anything to do with Walt Jr.

The most fundamental difference had to do with how episodes are structured and function within the season, however. The sophistication of a lot of "quality TV" comes from plotting season-long arcs -- certainly the dangerous situations Walt got into and the ways he extricated himself were the most compelling parts of Breaking Bad -- whereas The Sopranos, at its best, felt like a series of self-contained, carefully structured, thematically unified short films that stand on their own as great hours of TV. "Pine Barrens" obviously, but also, and more impressively since they do the season-story work too, "University" or "The Ride."

 

[Arn]

I'd definitely rank The Sopranos as an all time favourite. Interestingly I think I watched the first 2 or 3 episodes 4 or 5 times before I actually managed to get into it, but once I did....

Funny enough I had a similar experience with Breaking Bad. I struggled with the first couple of episodes (although I think that was maybe more because my mum had recently died of lung cancer and obviously lung cancer is kind of an important theme to the show). But again once I broke that initial block I tore through it.

Interestingly, I've never re-watched either, bar maybe if flicking channels on the TV and an episode happens to be on.

I've always struggled to get past the first few episodes of The Wire too. Maybe I'll have a similar experience with that at some point.

Another show I would recommend which is maybe a notch down from that real top end, but still fantastic is The Shield.

 

[Highlander]

Soprano's worth another go around, so is Boardwalk Empire and Deadwood where Al may be my favourite character of all time.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I really enjoyed Gangs of London. Created by the guy who did The Raid movies.

 

[herman]

I watched Jupiter's Legacy and it was butt and rightfully cancelled.

 

[bustaheims]

I'd definitely rank The Sopranos as an all time favourite. Interestingly I think I watched the first 2 or 3 episodes 4 or 5 times before I actually managed to get into it, but once I did....

Funny enough I had a similar experience with Breaking Bad. I struggled with the first couple of episodes (although I think that was maybe more because my mum had recently died of lung cancer and obviously lung cancer is kind of an important theme to the show). But again once I broke that initial block I tore through it.

Interestingly, I've never re-watched either, bar maybe if flicking channels on the TV and an episode happens to be on.

I've always struggled to get past the first few episodes of The Wire too. Maybe I'll have a similar experience with that at some point.

Another show I would recommend which is maybe a notch down from that real top end, but still fantastic is The Shield.

Breaking Bad's first season wasn't great. It's one of the few shows that probably benefitted from the writer's strike. I only stuck with it because so many people raved about it.

I'm watching The Wire now. The 1st season definitely picks up, but, yeah, the first few episodes are a bit of a world-building slog. I found the 2nd season was a letdown, but the 3rd and 4th are better. We're just about to get started on the final season.

 

[dappleganger]

I'd definitely rank The Sopranos as an all time favourite. Interestingly I think I watched the first 2 or 3 episodes 4 or 5 times before I actually managed to get into it, but once I did....

Funny enough I had a similar experience with Breaking Bad. I struggled with the first couple of episodes (although I think that was maybe more because my mum had recently died of lung cancer and obviously lung cancer is kind of an important theme to the show). But again once I broke that initial block I tore through it.

Interestingly, I've never re-watched either, bar maybe if flicking channels on the TV and an episode happens to be on.

I've always struggled to get past the first few episodes of The Wire too. Maybe I'll have a similar experience with that at some point.

Another show I would recommend which is maybe a notch down from that real top end, but still fantastic is The Shield.

Breaking Bad's first season wasn't great. It's one of the few shows that probably benefitted from the writer's strike. I only stuck with it because so many people raved about it.

I'm watching The Wire now. The 1st season definitely picks up, but, yeah, the first few episodes are a bit of a world-building slog. I found the 2nd season was a letdown, but the 3rd and 4th are better. We're just about to get started on the final season.

Season 2 was a let down, no doubt about that. It was an interesting choice to pivot like they did.

 

[Deebo]

Season 2 of the Wire is a funny one, mostly everyone I've talked to will say that it was a let down on the first time around. but ends up being much better on rewatches. I've seen it a few times now, and I love season 2. When you see the rest of the seasons, and go back to season 2, you see how of fits into the story much better.

Season 5 was the one that was a dip in quality for me, I thought the  rest was great.