Watch, Watched, Watching: The Final Cut

[Nictarion]

Couldn't disagree more with some of the opinions on The Sopranos here, it's easily my favorite show of all-time. Watching The Wire to "have a good time" also strikes me as a strange comment. The Wire is about as bleak as it gets tbh. 

[briantw]

16 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

Couldn't disagree more with some of the opinions on The Sopranos here, it's easily my favorite show of all-time. Watching The Wire to "have a good time" also strikes me as a strange comment. The Wire is about as bleak as it gets tbh. 

The Wire's characters are generally much more likable, though, and many of them are people that you can relate to.  They're not all awful, horrible people.  Carver, Daniels, Bunk, Greggs, Prez, Freamon, Bodie, Cutty, McNulty, Omar, Bubbles, Dukie, Beadie, Slim Charles, Prop Joe...none of them are perfect, but none are purely terrible people either.  Hell, I'd say most of the characters are generally likable.  Marlo is probably the only guy on the show I'd consider purely evil.  Most of the criminals depicted have their good and bad qualities.  Like, you can't help but like Avon when he gives Cutty the money for the boxing gym, for example.

And while it can be bleak at times, not every character has a bad ending in store for them.  The show also does a good job of inserting comic relief throughout, which is important when you are touching on such a serious subject matter.  

[Mark Antony]

1 hour ago, Nictarion said:

Couldn't disagree more with some of the opinions on The Sopranos here, it's easily my favorite show of all-time. Watching The Wire to "have a good time" also strikes me as a strange comment. The Wire is about as bleak as it gets tbh. 

Yeah this. The characters on The Sopranos being shitty people didn't weaken my enjoyment any. Shit I love Goodfellas and Hateful 8 and stuff like that where pretty much all the characters are horrible people.

The Wire is decent at comic relief but nowhere near the level of The Sopranos imo.

[Nictarion]

I'm not knocking The Wire. It's probably my second favorite show after The Sopranos, but it doesn't even come close in terms of comic relief. And while not all of the characters have depressing endings, a lot of them do.

 

Particularly 3/4 of the kids, Randy, Michael,  and especially Dukie have tragic ends to their arcs.

Seasons 2 & 4 are are both extremely bleak, and while they're brilliantly done as well as important, they're not quite as fun to watch compared to The Sopranos. Which had an absolute perfect balance of humor and drama imo.

As far as likeable characters, I love Tony Soprano. The same way I love Al Swearengen, or Walter White, or Stringer Bell. Dr. Melfi was obviously the moral center of the show though, so it's not as if they were all terrible people. Bobby was a good person for the most part as well. Which made

 

Tony's vindictive decision to have him kill the French Canadian guy all the more heartbreaking.

 

[Kindly Old Man]

1 hour ago, Nictarion said:

As far as likeable characters, I love Tony Soprano. The same way I love Al Swearengen, or Walter White, or Stringer Bell. Dr. Melfi was obviously the moral center of the show though, so it's not as if they were all terrible people. Bobby was a good person for the most part as well.

I don't really disagree with this; Melfi is pretty much the moral center of the show and Bobby one of the better people. However, Bobby is a violent extortionist and Melfi's big moral action is

Spoiler

to stop helping Tony be a better mobster after 6 years of enabling him,

so I think it's telling that those are the examples you chose. 

And I like watching Tony a lot myself. Swearengen and Stringer Bell too. Walter White sucks though, Gus Fring forever.

[Nictarion]

1 hour ago, Kindly Old Man said:

I don't really disagree with this; Melfi is pretty much the moral center of the show and Bobby one of the better people. However, Bobby is a violent extortionist and Melfi's big moral action is

  Reveal hidden contents

to stop helping Tony be a better mobster after 6 years of enabling him,

so I think it's telling that those are the examples you chose. 

And I like watching Tony a lot myself. Swearengen and Stringer Bell too. Walter White sucks though, Gus Fring forever.

Dr. Melfi also  

 

refused to take revenge on the man who raped her.

I'd count that as a pretty big moral action. 

And Avon isn't the only do-gooder in fictional crime land, remember when Tony gave the reverend the stolen turkeys to feed the poor at Thanksgiving?

[Kindly Old Man]

35 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

Dr. Melfi also  

  Reveal hidden contents

refused to take revenge on the man who raped her.

I'd count that as a pretty big moral action. 

True. I totally forgot about that, probably because

Spoiler

I was hoping Tony would take that guy out. Well, I never claimed to be a paragon of virtue. I just like watching them on tv sometimes.

 

[Isis]

I have often tended to feel like re-watching bits of The Sopranos when I have been feeling bleak myself and I think it definitely works in that context. I think it has more comic relief than The Wire, which I found to be bleak on an even greater level than The Sopranos to be honest.

Still watching Wayward Pines S2 and enjoying it. It has more depth than I expected from it this season.

 

[Talleyrand]

I got made to watch Winter's Tale last night by someone who was a fan of the book and was undeterred by me telling them that the reviews were terrible.

 

Now the fact that I fell asleep about 3 times in it probably didn't help but goddamn that film was bad and confusing. Russel Crowe with a terrible accent, a magic dog that's actually a flying horse, lot of talk about miracles and a Will Smith as the Devil wearing ear rings and a Jimi Hendrix shirt while having a weird rant about time.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Did anyone else catch the second episode of Vice Principles? I thought it got a little better, but still not on par with my expectations. I really am starting to like Goggin's character though. 

[Kindly Old Man]

17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Did anyone else catch the second episode of Vice Principles? I thought it got a little better, but still not on par with my expectations. I really am starting to like Goggin's character though. 

I thought it was an improvement. Goggins dancing around in the principal's house cracked me up.

[WarGalley]

Almost done with the first season of The Last Kingdom. Surprisingly good given that I'd never heard of it and only watched it based off of Netflix's recommendation. Having done a basic Wikipedia lookup, I was quite surprised to learn that Uhtred was based on a real person. Wonder how many of the show's characters are based on real people (particularly the Viking characters).

[GallowKnight]

5 minutes ago, WarGalley said:

Almost done with the first season of The Last Kingdom. Surprisingly good given that I'd never heard of it and only watched it based off of Netflix's recommendation. Having done a basic Wikipedia lookup, I was quite surprised to learn that Uhtred was based on a real person. Wonder how many of the show's characters are based on real people (particularly the Viking characters).

Ubba and Guthrum are based on real people. And so are naturally many of the Saxon characters as well, first and foremost Alfred the Great.

[WarGalley]

3 minutes ago, GallowKnight said:

Ubba and Guthrum are based on real people. And so are naturally many of the Saxon characters as well, first and foremost Alfred the Great.

Very interesting. I just came back from a vacation in Iceland and learned more about Viking culture than ever before. The fact that this show has some historical framework to it (however dramatized) is even more appealing. 

[Ramsay B.]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Did anyone else catch the second episode of Vice Principles? I thought it got a little better, but still not on par with my expectations. I really am starting to like Goggin's character though. 

I enjoyed it. Lee Russell is turning out to be great. It was funny watching Gandy react to the tea scene, him realizing he's out of his depth with how Russell really is. Dr. Brown is a good "villain" too.

[Veltigar]

I just managed to catch up with Mr. Robot. Truly a great series and one that I should have started watching months ago. 2015 was a pretty incredible year for television all things considered, seeing how it gave us Black Sails' second season and the first seasons of The Last Kingdom and Mr. Robot.

I love how cinematic this show feels. You can really tell they have put a lot of effort in their presentation. The way shots are blocked, how they use music, the title font, etc. I read an interesting article about the type of lenses the DP uses to bring out the eyes of our leads, being how they are so big and bright. The fact that so much time and thought went into it clearly shows.

The story is intriguing as well. The first season felt like some unholy House of Cars/Suits hybrid had a baby with a

Spoiler

Fight Club/V for Vendetta

hybrid (plus a lot of other references as well). You can clearly spot the inspiration behind the plot, but it doesn't matter. This series takes all those disparate elements and blends them together into a wonderful little potpourri of ideas. A potpourri with a great flow I might add, because eventhough this show is full of ludicrous elements (A man walking into a prison and meeting a con just like that seemed a bit off, just like how easy it was to escape from that prison), they don't really bother me. No piece of fiction is airtight, but when it takes the occassional short-cut, this show does it with so much style you can't help but be impressed. 

The acting was also excellent. I can't really single anyone out, because they were all pretty great. It was nice to see Christian Slater again, like I said before, between this and Archer he sure knows how to pick his TV-shows. 

The only worry I have is that this Sam Esmail, responsible for a lot of stuff on this show as creator, writer and director, must keep his shit together in order to stick the landing. I hope he hasn't bitten off more than he can chew. I don't want to have another True Detective Season 2 on our hands (although, I have seen no accusations of plagiarism, so the comparison with TD ends there). 

[Veltigar]

Has anyone been watching WGN's Underground? I wonder if it's worth watching?  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 hours ago, Kindly Old Man said:

I thought it was an improvement. Goggins dancing around in the principal's house cracked me up.

That whole scene was great, but iirc, it was the only thing that really stood out. 

21 hours ago, Ramsay Blow said:

I enjoyed it. Lee Russell is turning out to be great. It was funny watching Gandy react to the tea scene, him realizing he's out of his depth with how Russell really is. Dr. Brown is a good "villain" too.

That was a pretty good scene too, but not as funny as the scene in the principle's house. I'm getting the feeling that this is going to turn into a very dark comedy. 

[Mexal]

3 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Has anyone been watching WGN's Underground? I wonder if it's worth watching?  

I've heard it's very good from some reviewers I trust. I haven't gotten around to it yet though. So if you get time, watch a few episodes and let us know  Manhattan from WGN had a good first season. Still have to get to the 2nd season though.

[Veltigar]

15 hours ago, Mexal said:

I've heard it's very good from some reviewers I trust. I haven't gotten around to it yet though. So if you get time, watch a few episodes and let us know  Manhattan from WGN had a good first season. Still have to get to the 2nd season though.

I have just finished the first episode and it has definitely got potential. The hip hop soundtrack is pretty annoying (and I say that is someone who likes that genre), but the rest of the pilot was well done in my opinion. In the first episode, it does a good job at creating a gripping story, while simultaneously not forgetting that this was an awful time to suffer through. The actors are very good. In particular I liked Aldis Hoge, Jessica De Gouw (her character got a great introduction), Christopher Meloni and Jurnee Smollett-Bell. If it keeps on going like this, it definitely deserves the praise it gets. I will update as soon as I have seen more