Taboo: Tom Hardy's historical drama (BBC1/FX) [spoilers]

[dbunting]

Another decent at best episode.

So how many times is he going to survive an ambush attack after taking a serious injury?

The chemist sex scene was a little out of place but didn't bother me, bit of a perv

Growing tired of the sister drama. I could see the duel next week being another showcase of Delany's badassery. Something like him not even raising his gun even though the other guy shoots at him, Delany just walking up while he is reloading and bitch slapping him or something.

Oona Chaplin, liked her in GOT, not liking her so far in this.

Question for BBC folks, if you don't have the commercials how does BBC and / or the shows that air make money?

[Isis]

25 minutes ago, dbunting said:

Question for BBC folks, if you don't have the commercials how does BBC and / or the shows that air make money?

The annual license fee we pay in the UK funds their programming.

[Philokles]

In addition to the licence fee, they get a good amount from selling their programmes abroad. They also buy a lot of programmes from independent production companies - so if the shows succeed they often move on to other channels with bigger budgets. 

[red snow]

15 minutes ago, Isis said:

The annual license fee we pay in the UK funds their programming.

which allows (brexit voters/conservatives) license holders to get outraged whenever there is a show they don't like despite said show having a value of 0.01p (pretty sure it's a lot less) of their fee.

[Astromech]

8 hours ago, red snow said:

While played mainly for laughs it did help establish the chemist as a cheat and someone who uses his celebrity. I'm not sure how scandalous this behaviour was at the time (some context as to whether he was married would have helped). But I wouldn't say it was all that gratuitous but maybe I've just been desensitized by HBO?

The dream sex-scene was silly although I don't think it was intended. And again it's super weird if this an incestuos relationship. I don't think it really added anything new in terms of character but it was the strongest indication yet of there being real magic at play.

so half of the airtime for the episode is advertising? What a joke - especially with a show as slow as this one. I think I'd lose attention. If that's typical of ads in the states no wonder netflix and recorded TV is so popular. Although I guess your ads are subsidising our TV licenses when it comes to this show.

I think it's more a matter of  seeing Tom Hardy headlining the show and realizing they could sell a lot of advertising slots for the show. Vikings is another show which is terrible for commercials. Sports, namely the NFL, are terrible to watch in the States now.

[Ser Quork]

7 hours ago, Isis said:

It was a pile-on effect for me in that episode; lots of smut, not enough effective storytelling. That's when it becomes noticable. Make the balance better and maybe I will notice it less. It is not about any sort of puritanism on my part - it's just the lazy writing that gets on my tits.

Also: YAY for the BBC, the one really good thing about them is the lack of ads!

I agree with you completely.

And yes, ad-free TV is great.  Well worth the licence fee.  It's another reason why I tend to watch on demand so I don't have to have my attention constantly broken by commercials. Ugh.

 

[dbunting]

1 hour ago, Isis said:

The annual license fee we pay in the UK funds their programming.

So basically you pay a fee to have the BBC or to have all channels? I probably should just google this

[Isis]

13 hours ago, dbunting said:

So basically you pay a fee to have the BBC or to have all channels? I probably should just google this

Back in the day there was only BBC so you paid the fee*, there were no ads.

Then there was ITV, the third channel, and that had ads - but it was regional, so you got some different programmes depending on where you lived in the UK. I don't know what year ITV appeared, but I'd guess the 1960s as Channel 4 popped up in the early 1980's and it was RADICAL in some ways at the time. It also had ads. And then in the ?late 1980s we got Channel 5 which was frankly awful from the get go, appealing to the lowest common denominator - plenty of gratuitous nudity etc there. And then whatever channels we got after that (cable, satellite whatever) all had ads. BBC1 and BBC2 (then more recently we got more BBC channels) have always been ad free. So yeah, it's nice to watch stuff like Great British Bake Off with zero ads. Quite a refreshing change. I am not googling any of this by the way, just doing it off the top of my head, so feel free to smite me with your google fu.

*you need to have a TV license in order to legally watch TV in the UK (any TV channel, not just BBC). There have been campaigns to get rid of the fee but it still persists. It's about £150 per year. Vans used to go around the UK looking for people who were watching TV without a license. This all seems a bit weird when you think about it now.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

Normally I have no problem understanding strong British/European accents, but straight up I have to have the Closed Captions on for this.

Love Tom Hardy, but he could try a little harder to speak clearly.

[Ser Quork]

Just now, Suzanna Stormborn said:

Normally I have no problem understanding strong British/European accents, but straight up I have to have the Closed Captions on for this.

Love Tom Hardy, but he could try a little harder to speak clearly.

Well, I am British but I struggled with the mumbling in the last episode even more than usual.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

1 minute ago, Ser Quork said:

Well, I am British but I struggled with the mumbling in the last episode even more than usual.

lol yeah, he mumbles too much. I had no problem understanding him as Mad Max.  Also he whispers a lot on Taboo, which doesn't help......I can't remember what is was, but he pronounced a word so oddly the other night, my husband and I LOL'd.

[Martini Sigil]

7 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

lol yeah, he mumbles too much. I had no problem understanding him as Mad Max.  Also he whispers a lot on Taboo, which doesn't help......I can't remember what is was, but he pronounced a word so oddly the other night, my husband and I LOL'd.

The other fallout is that its really hard to adjust the volume, when half the dialogue is whispers nd mu mumbles... the scenes with Al Capone are unintelligible...

and BTW... Closed caption = a stroke of genius

[The Mother of The Others]

It looks like theyre going to keep trying to get him and he will prove resistant to  ....that.

[karaddin]

I think there is more of a supernatural point to the attempts to kill him continuing to fail even when they look like they should fail. He also should have died in the shipwreck but he didn't. He barely felt pain through being sewn up/tortured and he doesn't seem concerned that he might be killed. I'm starting to think he simply can't be killed, or at least can't be short of rather extraordinary lengths (like decapitation perhaps) and its something that will become obvious as these things continue to happen rather than us being explicitly told it early on.

For those that have read The First Law...he's an eater.

[Nictarion]

Really on the fence whether to continue with this or not. It's just not grabbing me much. I don't really look forward to it every week, and I haven't watched it on the night it airs yet. Not really a good sign. I like Tom Hardy, but if there's not a standout episode soon I may have to stick to seeing him in films, and small tv parts like in Peaky Blinders. I completely agree with whoever said Oona Chaplin hasn't been great in this. She was fine in GoT, but not digging her much here. 

[dbunting]

9 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

The other fallout is that its really hard to adjust the volume, when half the dialogue is whispers nd mu mumbles... the scenes with Al Capone are unintelligible...

and BTW... Closed caption = a stroke of genius

I am waiting for Nucky to show up and teach them how to run things properly

[DireWolfSpirit]

I'm still watching, i'm in for the duration, I want to see where/how this all goes.

[red snow]

13 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think there is more of a supernatural point to the attempts to kill him continuing to fail even when they look like they should fail. He also should have died in the shipwreck but he didn't. He barely felt pain through being sewn up/tortured and he doesn't seem concerned that he might be killed. I'm starting to think he simply can't be killed, or at least can't be short of rather extraordinary lengths (like decapitation perhaps) and its something that will become obvious as these things continue to happen rather than us being explicitly told it early on.

For those that have read The First Law...he's an eater.

I'm really hoping that there's either a transferral of knowledge or power from eating some of both his attackers. It would also help explain his rather speedy recoveries.

His horse also seemed to give him a heads up prior to his attack.

[karaddin]

6 hours ago, red snow said:

I'm really hoping that there's either a transferral of knowledge or power from eating some of both his attackers. It would also help explain his rather speedy recoveries.

His horse also seemed to give him a heads up prior to his attack.

Yeah, I thought something had happened there but had been distracted by my kitten. Clearly she wouldn't warn me of an impending attack, she'd help the attacker.

[Iskaral Pust]

The story needs to break out of this stagnant stage.  I thought Hardy said it picked up pace after the third ep?  The fourth was just more of the same and the preview of the fifth looks much the same too. 

If this is all there is then it's not worth it.  I'll tune in next week again in hope, but my DVR viewing - a necessity with these ads - is slipping later and later after broadcast.