416 replies to this topic

[Raidne]

How are we not talking about this? Seems like every fucking liberal media outlet is. I just watched the pilot and am sad about how much, at 33, I relate to this show about 24 year olds. I'm chalking it up to hitting the job market at the same time as the mortgage crisis.

[atia-]

I watched it too.  Definitely not bad.  I'm 24, so I wanted to see how much I could relate to it.  Plus, I'll watch anything on HBO.  Wish it was an hour, however.  Interested to see how it turns out!  The main actress is great...I like how they just picked a normal looking girl.

[Raidne]

She picked herself. She's the creator of the show, writer, and director.

[atia-]

Raidne, on 17 April 2012 - 12:33 AM, said:

She picked herself. She's the creator of the show, writer, and director.

Oh, yeah, I did read that :facepalm:.  She's incredibly clever.

[Raidne]

Here's hoping it doesn't cross the line into Juno clever. I don't think so so far. Not a lot of room for it to get alterna-cutesy. Besides I think New Girl has that covered.

Edited by Raidne, 17 April 2012 - 12:41 AM.

[atia-]

Yes!  I agree.  I wasn't really fond of the Juno humor.  Like you said, a little too cutesy.  HBO shows typically aren't too cheesy, thankfully.  Well, there is Enlightened.  I watched the first season and it was okay, but Laura Dern's personality in the show annoyed the hell out of me.

[RedEyedGhost]

Raidne, on 17 April 2012 - 12:13 AM, said:

How are we not talking about this?

Because for a comedy, it was criminally unfunny.  

[Raidne]

RedEyedGhost, on 17 April 2012 - 01:46 AM, said:

Because for a comedy, it was criminally unfunny.  

I actually thought it WAS funny.

[Starkess]

I checked out the pilot and found it neither funny nor appealing. Hannah was annoying and completely unsympathetic--and not in an entertaining way. Perhaps it's because as a 24 year old woman myself the situation is so far from anything I would experience or tolerate in my life that I find it completely unrelatable. Or maybe because it's just not my style of humor. I didn't like Juno either.

[atia-]

I think we're alone here, Raidne!

[Lord O' Bones]

dannister, on 17 April 2012 - 03:08 AM, said:

I think we're alone here, Raidne!

Never.

(Apologies to Raidne who should not have been reminded, and to dannister who should have never been exposed, and to LoB who is obviously damaged enough to remember this shit mostly unprompted.)

[Brady]

I liked it, and thought it was funny enough. I can definitely relate to spouting pompous grandiose statements comparable to "I think I might be the voice of my generation" while high as a kite . I found it interesting that they chose to introduce the main character in a fairly negative way. But I did feel a weird kind of sympathy for her. You can bet your ass there's a lot of kids out there right now who are only just discovering that the life of plenty they grew up with is pretty much gone, and might not ever be coming back, and that really isn't their fault at all.

[Raidne]

Lord O, on 17 April 2012 - 04:23 AM, said:

(Apologies to Raidne who should not have been reminded, and to dannister who should have never been exposed, and to LoB who is obviously damaged enough to remember this shit mostly unprompted.)

Apology not accepted. I don't need to be dancing around with my sister lip-synching in stonewashed denim as a third-grader at 8am.

Starkess, on 17 April 2012 - 03:00 AM, said:

I checked out the pilot and found it neither funny nor appealing. Hannah was annoying and completely unsympathetic--and not in an entertaining way. Perhaps it's because as a 24 year old woman myself the situation is so far from anything I would experience or tolerate in my life that I find it completely unrelatable. Or maybe because it's just not my style of humor. I didn't like Juno either.

Apologies if this is in any way offensive, and I don't think it is, but people who go into the military tend to be the kind of people who just don't understand why everyone can't just suck it up and get on with it on already. You know, the sort of person that has an eye-roll reflex at hearing the word "existential." I find this to be an excellent trait, am madly jealous of those who have it, and like to befriend these people, but it's totally alien to me. It's not that the rest of us are that self-involved, although I'm sure it looks that way, it's that we have to dig a little deeper to find that kind of motivation. Think of it as sort of a defect.

As for the cultural commentary, I agree with Brady, who I knew would kind of like this show. It is very female though - the male characters aren't very fleshed out at this point. Brady, what did you think about Hannah's parents? What does everyone think about this? I mean, on the one hand, sure, they want to enjoy their retirement and feel flush with some extra cash already, but is it really okay to leave your daughter eating ramen and working at a cafe or something while you live it up in the Hamptons? What is the moral compass on what people owe to their kids in an era where getting a paying job after college can take a year or more and merely earning money instead of taking an experience-building unpaid internship can cost their kids hundreds of thousands of dollars in future earnings?

[Ran]

I liked it. It wasn't hilariously funny (though Hannah half-passed out on the floor going on about dying like Flaubert in a garrett, and dramatically sweeping her hand over her face as she told them not to look at her, did make me laugh). But on the other hand, it didn't feel like a fake in-joke of what these lives might be like, like the superficiality of Entourage that basically never scratched the surface (I watched it because that one could, indeed, be hilarious thanks to Ari and Drama, at least in the first seasons).

I'm never going to live those lives, nothing close, but then I'm never going to live the lives of the Fishers, the Starks, the Sopranos, or the Carries and Samanthas of the world. But I don't mind watching them, myself. I do live in dread of it turning too referential or cutesy and frivolous, but so long as it has a clear-eyed regard for these young women it's focusing on, I think I'll keep watching.

[Raidne]

I never understood how I could stand watching Entourage seeing as it's arguably pretty misogynistic, but I've probably seen every episode. It's so escapist, I guess. And there some stuff in there about how movies get made and how certain films turn out how they do that I thought was likely not wholly unrealistic. Girls is definitely not escapist. Not sure what it is. But I think Lena Dunham does have a real voice and I think her directing is really great for TV, although it's a little too Wes Anderson, IMO, and that feels a little dated. I'm not sure if that's dated in the "that's so turn of the millennia" sense or the "that's the kind of thing I thought was great when I was in my twenties" sense.

[Darth Arya]

I'm not sure when this will debut here but it sounds interesting and I will definatly be checking it out.

On the topic of Entourage I agree with what Raidne said, it is pretty misogynistic and some of it made me cringe, in fact I wasn't particularly keen on any of the characters except Ari Gold, I can't help it, I find the guy hilarious.

[Mexal]

I liked it. Will definitely give it a few more episodes.

Edited by Mexal, 17 April 2012 - 08:26 AM.

[Mr. E]

I liked it too, definitely going to keep watching.

Raidne, on 17 April 2012 - 07:00 AM, said:

As for the cultural commentary, I agree with Brady, who I knew would kind of like this show. It is very female though - the male characters aren't very fleshed out at this point. Brady, what did you think about Hannah's parents? What does everyone think about this? I mean, on the one hand, sure, they want to enjoy their retirement and feel flush with some extra cash already, but is it really okay to leave your daughter eating ramen and working at a cafe or something while you live it up in the Hamptons? What is the moral compass on what people owe to their kids in an era where getting a paying job after college can take a year or more and merely earning money instead of taking an experience-building unpaid internship can cost their kids hundreds of thousands of dollars in future earnings?

It's an interesting question really, and one I think the show handles pretty deftly. TBH, I came down mostly on the side of the parents in this, however. Partly because the main character was showing no real motivation to get a paying job, but mostly I think it's because my own upbringing just can't gel with this kind of support system: kids being given fifteen hundred or more a month for over a year? WTF?

At some point you have to cut the kid loose, and I think a year is plenty long enough.

But that's not a criticism of the show, it's an attribute. I really appreciated how fully the show treated the problems of this class of young adults in the big city just getting started. It's partly spoiled, partly entitled, partly hypocritical, and deeply affecting, and the show is self-aware enough to realize that those these people do have problems, while at the same time there's a level of bourgeoise hypocrisy/entitlement going on that the characters are halfway aware of, a la the "McDonald's" conversation.

[Nichole]

I don't know yet if I like it or not. I'm willing to give the show some time.

I definitely side with Hannah's parents. She needs to be cut off, she is an adult. I think this is partly why I had a hard time watching the pilot, I don't feel bad for her at all. But, I also think that might be the point of the show, you aren't supposed to necessarily feel bad for Hannah, just watch as she struggles to be an adult.

[Chataya de Fleury]

I'm with Starkness, definitely in the "suck it up and get on with it already" camp (as described by Raidne).  Very far from anything I would have experienced or tolerated at age 24, also.

Won't be watching again.