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Rank your 2017 TV shows throughout the year


Corvinus85

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On 1-9-2017 at 5:04 PM, Annara Snow said:

 Sure, it has good actors, great music and a big budget, but none of this can cover the shitty writing at the core of it. I don't know how long the Emperor's New Clothes effect will continue, but I'm sure one day it'll stop, and then everyone will be wondering what the hell people were thinking in mid-2010s. Especially after we get the completion of the real and far superior story of ASOAIF, and not this really bad crackfic in TV form.

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The book series is of course never going to be completed. The writing is on the wall on that, and has been for years. In fact, there is more writing on the wall, than there are Dream of Spring manuscript pages.

We'll be very lucky if we get Winds of Winter at some point, and that itself may be years away as per Martin's last update. And he's been at that book for 6 years already. We are never going to see him publish a massive 7th volume and it shocks me to realize that some people still think that will happen. But then not everyone has been following this saga unfold for the last 17 years as I have and so if you're new to it, maybe you can think there's a chance.

The reason it keeps racking up Emmy awards year after year is because it's a genuinely top quality show.

There's not going to be an "Emperor's new clothes" effect with GoT, this show will be very popular for years to come and will continue to pop up in people's "best tv shows" list 10-15 years from now. I've been stunned by how well received the show is even by people who normally want nothing to do with fantasy or science fiction genres, like everyone where I work. Of course I also met people who dislike anything that isn't "realistic" or not a cop drama and they are not convinced by GoT either. Also on another note, the sort of super negativity on the show that you display is generally reserved for some people on this forum who for whatever reason take a very strong dislike to the show. I don't see that in other places on the Web, or in real life. I can empathize with that though, I was the exact same way on the Tolkien forums when the Lord of the Rings films came out.

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6 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

The book series is of course never going to be completed. The writing is on the wall on that, and has been for years.

We'll be very lucky if we get Winds of Winter at some point, and that itself may be years away as per Martin's last update. And he's been at that book for 6 years already. We are never going to see him publish a massive 7th volume and it stuns me to realize that some people still think that will happen. But then not everyone has been following this saga unfold for the last 17 years as I have and so if you're new to it, maybe you can think there's a chance.

The reason it keeps racking up Emmy awards year after year is because it's a genuinely top quality show.

There's not going to be an "Emperor's new clothes" effect with GoT, this show will be very popular for years to come and will continue to pop up in people's "best tv shows" list 10-15 years from now. I've been stunned by how well received the show is even by people who normally want nothing to do with fantasy or science fiction genres, like everyone where I work. Of course I also met people who dislike anything that isn't "realistic" or not a cop drama and they are not convinced by GoT either. Also on another note, the sort of super negativity on the show that you display is generally reserved for some people on this forum who for whatever reason take a very strong dislike to the show. I don't see that in other places on the Web, or in real life.

As someone who would have ranked the show #1 on my list for the past few years I'm personally not going to let it into my final top ten of the year this year. Maybe had I not been a book reader and been less involved with the story I'd be able to overlook some of the issues, but there is no doubt the show has dropped hugely in quality, mainly in terms of storytelling, script and character. It has pushed up in terms of set pieces and plot development ( as in more is happening) but sometimes you need the connective tissue between those scenes to really get the full effect.

I think Annara Snow is coming more from a ranting perspective and over egging how bad the show is, its clearly better than much of the trash on tv and still has a decent level of competence in its writing. 

Having said that, I would easily put it above many of the other shows Corvinius listed. House of Cards was unwatchable this year, Defenders is desperately bland, AoS and GRIMM?!?!. I think there needs to be some perspective. 

There are easily 10 better shows out this year than GoT, but that doesn't mean its a bad tv show.

 

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3 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I think Annara Snow is coming more from a ranting perspective and over egging how bad the show is, its clearly better than much of the trash on tv and still has a decent level of competence in its writing. 

Having said that, I would easily put it above many of the other shows Corvinius listed. House of Cards was unwatchable this year, Defenders is desperately bland, AoS and GRIMM?!?!. I think there needs to be some perspective. 

 

That was the thing that drew me to comment really, to see what sort of terrible shows are being named in front of GoT.

I can certainly see that it's not a perfect show but to see tv shows that I couldn't even finish an episode of listed in front of an acclaimed series like GoT, it just seems like people are lashing out unreasonably. My main criticism of GoT is that there's not enough of it and that it flies by incredibly fast, but then that is the result of the format they've chosen. It's given me more "holy fuck" moments than any other show the last 10 years though.

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19 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

That was the thing that drew me to comment really, to see what sort of terrible shows are being named in front of GoT.

I can certainly see that it's not a perfect show but to see tv shows that I couldn't even finish an episode of listed in front of an acclaimed series like GoT, it just seems like people are lashing out unreasonably. My main criticism of GoT is that there's not enough of it and that it flies by incredibly fast, but then that is the result of the format they've chosen. It's given me more "holy fuck" moments than any other show the last 10 years though.

I've spent enough time in the GoT discussion boards to know how emotive an issue this is for some people, and it can be hard to view the show objectively due to their love of the source material. The current season is the worst by far and most of the crimes the show has been guilty of have become ever more frequent with every episode: poor writing, expositional dialogue, rushed plotting, nonsensical moments. 

But there are plenty of shows that have exactly the same issues, and don't even have any of the more positive qualities of the show. Agents of SHIELD can be reasonably entertaining, but is essentially teen trash. Grimm is horrible. Homeland is insulting to its viewers and House of Cards the past couple of years has become a parody of itself. I don't think you could ever put shows like that above Game of Thrones without being a little dishonest about your feelings. Theres an element of spite involved with those rankings sometimes, and its understandable, I got very angry at GoT this year and might have done the same if I'd voted after Ravens became superpowered.

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Here's my "Holy shit, I watch way too fucking much TV" post:

1. The Leftovers
2. American Gods
3. Better Call Saul
4. Sense8
5. The Young Pope
6. The Handmaid's Tale
7. Feud
8. Fargo
9. The Expanse
10. Rick and Morty
11. Baskets
12. Black Sails
13. The Tick
14. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
15. GLOW
16. Silicon Valley
17. Archer
18. Master of None
19. Game of Thrones
20. The Path
21. Girls
22. Love
23. The Last Kingdom
24. Hap and Leonard
25. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
26. Insecure
27. Veep
28. The Magicians
29. Grace and Frankie
30. The Mick
31. The Defenders
32. Sherlock
33. Taboo

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3 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I've spent enough time in the GoT discussion boards to know how emotive an issue this is for some people, and it can be hard to view the show objectively due to their love of the source material. The current season is the worst by far and most of the crimes the show has been guilty of have become ever more frequent with every episode: poor writing, expositional dialogue, rushed plotting, nonsensical moments. 

 

I can see why people have problems with this season as someone who enjoyed it. I recognize that the season has its flaws, mainly in episodes 5-6. But I think this has been a flawed show from the beginning (and the books themselves are also flawed, so there's that). I can't think of any scenes this season that were worse than some of the terrible exposition scenes in season 1, especially Littlefinger's brothel monologue. I can't think of any plotlines/character arcs this season that were worse than Dany in Qarth or Jon Snow in season 2 or the never-ending Reek torture in season 3 or Dorne in season 5. And of course mileage will vary, but I find that the show is just so much better produced and executed than it was in the earlier days; nearly all the actors are doing a good job now, the show doesn't feel fragmented in the way it did in season 2 when the showrunners weren't sure how to adapt so many different storylines, etc...

And when the show did slow down a little this season, it gave us some truly fantastic scenes and episodes- The Spoils of War and The Wolf and the Dragon stand out for me as some of the best episodes this show has ever done. So I have a hard time seeing the giant drop in quality many on this board are talking about, even if the flaws of this season bother some more than me. And I definitely have a hard time seeing how people can consider this season to be worse than a lot of what's on TV these days; I just watched the first three episodes of the Defenders, for example, and the difference in quality between it and Game of Thrones is night and day, just in terms of acting, pacing, direction, writing, etc.. But of course, mileage does vary...

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21 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I can see why people have problems with this season as someone who enjoyed it. I recognize that the season has its flaws, mainly in episodes 5-6. But I think this has been a flawed show from the beginning (and the books themselves are also flawed, so there's that). I can't think of any scenes this season that were worse than some of the terrible exposition scenes in season 1, especially Littlefinger's brothel monologue. I can't think of any plotlines/character arcs this season that were worse than Dany in Qarth or Jon Snow in season 2 or the never-ending Reek torture in season 3 or Dorne in season 5. And of course mileage will vary, but I find that the show is just so much better produced and executed than it was in the earlier days; nearly all the actors are doing a good job now, the show doesn't feel fragmented in the way it did in season 2 when the showrunners weren't sure how to adapt so many different storylines, etc...

And when the show did slow down a little this season, it gave us some truly fantastic scenes and episodes- The Spoils of War and The Wolf and the Dragon stand out for me as some of the best episodes this show has ever done. So I have a hard time seeing the giant drop in quality many on this board are talking about, even if the flaws of this season bother some more than me. And I definitely have a hard time seeing how people can consider this season to be worse than a lot of what's on TV these days; I just watched the first three episodes of the Defenders, for example, and the difference in quality between it and Game of Thrones is night and day, just in terms of acting, pacing, direction, writing, etc.. But of course, mileage does vary...

I can see what your saying, for me the difference is the proportion of 'good' scenes to 'bad' scenes. Sure there have always been a few clunky moments in GoT, many you have just mentioned. I think the difference is that they were usually the exception to the rule, and that mostly the show was smartly paced, full of wit and intrigue, it was good at building tension, featured many beautifully acted moments and plenty of emotional payoffs. For every crappy Ramsey Bolton scene there usually 5 excellently acted and well made scenes. 

This latest season you'd be hard pressed to find one good , clever, well written scene that doesn't feel like some hastily put together attempt to make sure the plot points occur. I rewatched the first episode of season 7 last week and there was one solitary scene I felt came close to the quality of the first few seasons. That was Jim Broadbent and sam having a conversation about White Walkers, that was the only half decent scene that episode and it was probably the least exciting. The first 20 minutes were pure exposition designed to help casuals catch up, and it was obvious. 

The show has always been over rated in terms of artistic merit, its always been quite soapish and melodramatic, but it has no lost any pretence at art and is purely a commercial venture now, which I find quite sad, but understandable considering its production.

 

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Update v4.0 for my 2017 watch list. New entries are in red.

  1. Game of Thrones S7 (Look, I know it's only 7 episodes long and there was a lot that wasn't as good as previous seasons. However, no show gave me more joy to watch nor provided me so much to discuss with others this year. And because dragons. Awesome, awesome, awesome dragons.)
  2. Legion S1
  3. The Good Place S1
  4. Black Mirror S3
  5. The Young Pope
  6. American Gods
  7. Fargo S3 (I binged this at the height of Trump/Russia collusion media saturation right before Charlottesville and NK took over the news cycle, so maybe that impacted why this affected me so deeply. Also the cast was fucking amazing. Carrie Coon got a lot of buzz but McGregor, Thewlis, and Winstead all shined, too.)
  8. Leftovers S3
  9. Big Little Lies S1
  10. Rick & Morty S1-3 (I watched some episodes of S1 back when they first aired but lost track of the show. This summer I rediscovered it amidst all the S3 hype. Probably the show I quote most in my daily life. There's a coworker I shout "Pickle Rick" to at least once a day. Just the right blend of existentialism, nihilism, and absurd goofiness.)
  11. The Handmaid’s Tale (Brutal to watch yet compelling. The more TV shows I watched though, the further this kept creeping down on my list. I did find some of Offred's narration to be repetitive and that did become tedious, but that's really the only complaint.)
  12. New Girl S6
  13. Defenders S1 (Great but not amazing. Just enough fanboy moments to keep me accepting of the uneven fight scenes. Jessica Jones S2 & DD S3 can't get here fast enough!)
  14. Peaky Blinders S3 (I felt this season was more plot than character driven. The antagonists ended up being more interesting than the protagonists. Damn fine cliffhanger of a season finale.)
  15. Ozark S1 (The pilot episode is probably one of my favorite TV episodes this year. It's basically one or two tweaks away from being an indie crime drama film by itself. The rest of the season is a bit uneven, but overall good crime/family drama. So many great characters in this show.)
  16. Master of None S2
  17. Star Wars Rebels S3 
  18. The Crown S1 
  19. GLOW S1
  20. Defiant Ones (If this wasn't a documentary series I probably would've found a place for it closer to my top 10. I just feel fiction has that extra step of writing to it and therefore mediocre fiction works out higher than outstanding non-fiction. Anyway, this was edited/directed beautifully. Even if you're not a music fan you'd find this fascinating.)
  21. Archer Dreamland S8
  22. The Walking Dead S7.2
  23. Agents of SHIELD S4
  24. Better Call Saul S3
  25. Brockmire S1
  26. The Last Kingdom S2 (A lot of people on this forum seemed to dig S2 more so than I did. It was good, but uneven.)
  27. Last Man On Earth S3
  28. Silicon Valley S4
  29. Catastrophe S3
  30. Brooklyn Nine-Nine S4
  31. Love S2 
  32. VEEP S6
  33. Friends From College (I've always found it hard to identify with cheaters/adulterers as protagonists, so it was kinda hard for me to enjoy the "comedy" of close friends betraying each other on deeply personal levels. That being said, there was some good laughs in here. Fred Savage & Billy Eichner's couple were my favorite characters.)
  34. Son of Zorn S1
  35. Crashing (HBO) S1
  36. Sherlock S4 
  37. Sneaky Pete S1
  38. Powerless S1
  39. Emerald City S1
  40. Ballers S2 (Don't judge. It's background noise around the house...mostly.)
  41. Vikings S4.2
  42. Rubicon S1
  43. Man in the High Castle S2
  44. Iron Fist S1
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As usual, show defenders can't actually refute a single criticism (I'm still waiting for any of them to explain how Sansa's and Stannis' season 5 arcs made any sort of sense and how they were not terrible storytelling) and instead resort to "oh you're just an emotional book snob" line, the "my opinion is popular, look at all the Emmys" line,  the "well GRRM will never finish the books" line (thanks for the crystal ball update - as if that would make the show better even if it were true) and off-hand dismissal of other shows, sometimes in a way that don't even make sense, like claiming that AoS is geered toward teens, which pretty much tells me you don't actually watch it ("this will work because they don't have the reputation of prestige TV"). Nothing I haven't seen before, and pretty unoriginal. It's also hilarious to be told you're exaggerating by a person who claims GoT has been always excellent and is a top 5 best ever show and compares it to The Wire and The Sopranos.

Truth be told, you don't have to even be a book reader to recognize the crappy writing of GoT. I can think of quite a few viewers who haven't even read the books but see that it's really gone downhill.

And yeah - the show has always had some terrible plots, characterization and scenes, like LF's sexposition monologue, Dany's and Jon's season 2 plots, Talisa, the Theon torture porn, Pod the sex god comedy subplot- and I could go on. It's just that it still had enough good to offset the bad, and so I could repress my frustration over a lot of these things (including such things as their marginalization of Cat, inability to write Sansa well, prioritization of the male perspective even when the woman is a main character, the Nice Guy narrative they turned Dany/Jorah and Sansa/Tyrion into, the stereotypical ideas of what 'strong female characters' are where every female who is portrayed as worthwhile has either to be physically fighting or seducing men, the awful stereotypical portrayal of Loras in season 3 in particular... which all become more obvious when you compare it to the books) and forgive the flaws, because I really wanted to like the show. Boy, did I want to keep giving it a chance. But at some point, you have to acknowledge that the thing looking like shit and smelling like shit is actually shit, no matter how many media outlets and Emmy voters try to convince you it's a delicious cake.

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19 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

As usual, show defenders can't actually refute a single criticism (I'm still waiting for any of them to explain how Sansa's and Stannis' season 5 arcs made any sort of sense and how they were not terrible storytelling) and instead resort to "oh you're just an emotional book snob" line, the "my opinion is popular, look at all the Emmys" line,  the "well GRRM will never finish the books" line (thanks for the crystal ball update - as if that would make the show better even if it were true) and off-hand dismissal of other shows, sometimes in a way that don't even make sense, like claiming that AoS is geered toward teens, which pretty much tells me you don't actually watch it ("this will work because they don't have the reputation of prestige TV"). Nothing I haven't seen before, and pretty unoriginal. It's also hilarious to be told you're exaggerating by a person who claims GoT has been always excellent and is a top 5 best ever show and compares it to The Wire and The Sopranos.

Truth be told, you don't have to even be a book reader to recognize the crappy writing of GoT. I can think of quite a few viewers who haven't even read the books but see that it's really gone downhill.

And yeah - the show has always had some terrible plots, characterization and scenes, like LF's sexposition monologue, Dany's and Jon's season 2 plots, Talisa, the Theon torture porn, Pod the sex god comedy subplot- and I could go on. It's just that it still had enough good to offset the bad, and so I could repress my frustration over a lot of these things (including such things as their marginalization of Cat, inability to write Sansa well, prioritization of the male perspective even when the woman is a main character, the Nice Guy narrative they turned Dany/Jorah and Sansa/Tyrion into, the stereotypical ideas of what 'strong female characters' are where every female who is portrayed as worthwhile has either to be physically fighting or seducing men, the awful stereotypical portrayal of Loras in season 3 in particular... which all become more obvious when you compare it to the books) and forgive the flaws, because I really wanted to like the show. Boy, did I want to keep giving it a chance. But at some point, you have to acknowledge that the thing looking like shit and smelling like shit is actually shit, no matter how many media outlets and Emmy voters try to convince you it's a delicious cake.

Yeah it's posts like that which made me stay away from the GOT board

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21 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I've spent enough time in the GoT discussion boards to know how emotive an issue this is for some people, and it can be hard to view the show objectively due to their love of the source material. The current season is the worst by far and most of the crimes the show has been guilty of have become ever more frequent with every episode: poor writing, expositional dialogue, rushed plotting, nonsensical moments. 

But there are plenty of shows that have exactly the same issues, and don't even have any of the more positive qualities of the show. Agents of SHIELD can be reasonably entertaining, but is essentially teen trash. Grimm is horrible. Homeland is insulting to its viewers and House of Cards the past couple of years has become a parody of itself. I don't think you could ever put shows like that above Game of Thrones without being a little dishonest about your feelings. Theres an element of spite involved with those rankings sometimes, and its understandable, I got very angry at GoT this year and might have done the same if I'd voted after Ravens became superpowered.

Oh, and I find the "teen trash" label in particularly interesting. I'd love to know, what exactly does "teen trash" mean? Disregarding the trash part, how is trash specifically 'teen' and what in your eyes signifies that a show is geared towards teenagers specifically (not that that would be bad in itself)?

Let's compare a couple of shows mentioned in this post.

Both shows feature a lot of violence, sometimes very gruesome. Show B has more graphic and gruesome violence than show A, but show A is on network TV and has as much gruesome violence you can get away with on network TV (including, for instance, a scene where a Dr Mengele-type scientist experiments on a cuts up a woman into pieces while she is still alive, another one where a serial killer is carving markings into his victims, another one where a woman is shot in the throat and seen bleeding, another one with drained husks of humans murdered by an alien being...), while show B is on HBO and therefore can be a lot more graphic and violent. 

Show A has no teenage characters or themes whatsoever. Two of its main characters that get most screentime (including its nominal lead) are characters in their 50s, played by actors in their 50s, but their ages are never brought up in particular and they are not treated as over the hill; they both get to be physical in their job, they have love interests, sexual relationships and love scenes. One of them is a woman, who is portrayed as sexy (though that doesn't even remotely define her character) and has more physical fights than anyone else on the show, but her age is never brought up as an issue, not even when she was having a sexual relationship with a man 20 years her junior. 

Show B, meanwhile, had two of its main characters - who are canonically in their mid 30s, or at most 40 in the show timeline, but were played by 50 year old actors - have one love scene, which was 100% chaste (in a marked departure from its source material, where the two characters have a passionate sex scene), while at the same time featuring many sex scenes and nude scenes including conventionally attractive 20 something people, many scenes designed specifically to show naked conventionally attractive young women, and a lot of juvenile sex humor - to the point that it became the subject of a Saturday Night Live parody whose punchline was that the show had a sex-obsessed 13 year old boy as one of its executive producers.

One of these shows is Agents of SHIELD. The other one is Game of Thrones. Now can you answer the question: which is which?

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13 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Oh, and I find the "teen trash" label in particularly interesting. I'd love to know, what exactly does "teen trash" mean? Disregarding the trash part, how is trash specifically 'teen' and what in your eyes signifies that a show is geared towards teenagers specifically (not that that would be bad in itself)?

Let's compare a couple of shows mentioned in this post.

Both shows feature a lot of violence, sometimes very gruesome. Show B has more graphic and gruesome violence than show A, but show A is on network TV and has as much gruesome violence you can get away with on network TV (including, for instance, a scene where a Dr Mengele-type scientist experiments on a cuts up a woman into pieces while she is still alive, another one where a serial killer is carving markings into his victims, another one where a woman is shot in the throat and seen bleeding, another one with drained husks of humans murdered by an alien being...), while show B is on HBO and therefore can be a lot more graphic and violent. 

Show A has no teenage characters or themes whatsoever. Two of its main characters that get most screentime (including its nominal lead) are characters in their 50s, played by actors in their 50s, but their ages are never brought up in particular and they are not treated as over the hill; they both get to be physical in their job, they have love interests, sexual relationships and love scenes. One of them is a woman, who is portrayed as sexy (though that doesn't even remotely define her character) and has more physical fights than anyone else on the show, but her age is never brought up as an issue, not even when she was having a sexual relationship with a man 20 years her junior. 

Show B, meanwhile, had two of its main characters - who are canonically in their mid 30s, or at most 40 in the show timeline, but were played by 50 year old actors - have one love scene, which was 100% chaste (in a marked departure from its source material, where the two characters have a passionate sex scene), while at the same time featuring many sex scenes and nude scenes including conventionally attractive 20 something people, many scenes designed specifically to show naked conventionally attractive young women, and a lot of juvenile sex humor - to the point that it became the subject of a Saturday Night Live parody whose punchline was that the show had a sex-obsessed 13 year old boy as one of its executive producers.

One of these shows is Agents of SHIELD. The other one is Game of Thrones. Now can you answer the question: which is which?

Yeah that exactly the sort of nonsense I'm talking about. A sort of bizarre obsession with sex, as if that bares any relevance to the quality of the show or the writing. 

Its fine to be a Agents of SHIELD fan, I quite enjoy it for what it is, but I don't think anyone can claim it is a high quality show or meaningfully written. Its light and fluffy and its attempts at pathos and 'themes' are mostly incredibly clunky. Its a network show from top to bottom. 

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48 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Yeah that exactly the sort of nonsense I'm talking about. A sort of bizarre obsession with sex 

Now, now don't be that harsh on D&D. Their obsession with sex is not bizarre, they just know it sells, even (especially?) the juvenile male gazey sort they're selling. Besides, they are able to write nonsense about things other than sex, such as politics. Watching their attempts to write political plots on their own is perhaps even more painful than their attempts to portray romance or sexuality, or meaningful human interactions, or female characters, or...

(I could seriously address your amazing ability to persistently use Straw Men to ignore the criticism of the bad writing, sexism and ageism on GoT - but why bother? It's not like you're bothering to offer or refute any arguments.)

Quote

It's fine to be Agents of SHIELD fan, I quite enjoy for what it is, but I don't think anyone can claim it's a high quality show or meaningfully written.

One can, however, certainly claim it's currently leagues better than GoT, and one would be completely right about that. Though it's faint praise, considering how atrocious GoT has become. If you removed the production values, effects, cast and music, it's painfully clear that the quality of the writing for the last 3 seasons would, frankly, be more comparable to a trashy Mexican telenovela. It's fine to enjoy GoT for tits, dragons and swordfights, but I don't understand how anyone can claim it's still a good show. 

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4 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Now, now don't be that harsh on D&D. Their obsession with sex is not bizarre, they just know it sells, even (especially?) the juvenile male gazey sort they're selling. Besides, they are able to write nonsense about things other than sex, such as politics. Watching their attempts to write political plots on their own is perhaps even more painful than their attempts to portray romance or sexuality, or meaningful human interactions, or female characters, or...

(I could seriously address your amazing ability to persistently use Straw Men to ignore the criticism of the bad writing, sexism and ageism on GoT - but why bother? It's not like you're bothering to offer or refute any arguments.)

One can, however, certainly claim it's currently leagues better than GoT, and one would be completely right about that. Though it's faint praise, considering how atrocious GoT has become. If you removed the production values, effects, cast and music, it's painfully clear that the quality of the writing for the last 3 seasons would, frankly, be more comparable to a trashy Mexican telenovela. It's fine to enjoy GoT for tits, dragons and swordfights, but I don't understand how anyone can claim it's still a good show. 

My point is, perceived sexism isn't really something I use as a barometer of quality, in fact I think GoT has made so many ludicrous attempts to counter the sexism charge in the past few seasons that its gone completely the other way. Now every female is 'empowered' and strong, and most of the male characters are weak and pathetic. 

And if we are purely talking about the last couple of seasons then I would agree with you. There has been very little attempt to real deal with politics on anything more than a superficial level. The romances are mostly incredibly shallow and poorly set up and there is too much reliance on fart and nob jokes. I'm totally in agreement with you there. I don't think its still a great show. I do think it has just enough to make it a good show still, but its really borderline and there have been many occasions this season and last where I had my head in my hands at its ineptness. 

However even with all of that, its still better than Agents of SHIELD. 

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2 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

As usual, show defenders can't actually refute a single criticism (I'm still waiting for any of them to explain how Sansa's and Stannis' season 5 arcs made any sort of sense and how they were not terrible storytelling) and instead resort to "oh you're just an emotional book snob" line, the "my opinion is popular, look at all the Emmys" line,  the "well GRRM will never finish the books" line (thanks for the crystal ball update - as if that would make the show better even if it were true) and off-hand dismissal of other shows, sometimes in a way that don't even make sense, like claiming that AoS is geered toward teens, which pretty much tells me you don't actually watch it ("this will work because they don't have the reputation of prestige TV"). Nothing I haven't seen before, and pretty unoriginal. It's also hilarious to be told you're exaggerating by a person who claims GoT has been always excellent and is a top 5 best ever show and compares it to The Wire and The Sopranos.

Boy, did I want to keep giving it a chance. But at some point, you have to acknowledge that the thing looking like shit and smelling like shit is actually shit, no matter how many media outlets and Emmy voters try to convince you it's a delicious cake.

You didn't really want to give it a chance of course, that is pretense. No one in the media is trying to convince you, it really is an excellent show but it's just not for you. Once they showed tits, they were damned to seven hells as far as you're concerned. It's also hard to argue with someone who hasn't watched the last two seasons and then claims others won't refute "arguments". Your argument is " Sansa's arc and Stannis arc didn't make sense"." Theon was tortured". "Talisa!!".

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40 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

You didn't really want to give it a chance of course, that is pretense. No one in the media is trying to convince you, it really is an excellent show but it's just not for you. Once they showed tits, they were damned to seven hells as far as you're concerned. It's also hard to argue with someone who hasn't watched the last two seasons and then claims others won't refute "arguments". Your argument is " Sansa's arc and Stannis arc didn't make sense"." Theon was tortured". "Talisa!!".

Oh really? Then how the heck did I not drop it in the pilot, but enjoyed season 1 and big chunks of seasons 2-4 and keep making excuses for it until the clusterfuck it became in season 5?

The tits were specifically mentioned because of the interesting question what exactly constitutes "teen trash" vs a "mature" show. Of course, your pretense that you think my only problem with GoT is that it shows tits is BS. I wonder how The Sopranos is one of my favourite shows then? It showed a lot of tits, too. 

Gotta love the way show apologists try to dismiss every criticism by "then stop watching it" but if you say you actually have stopped, you don't get to criticize it. You've got all the bases covered!

And I love your "rebuttal" that plots being completely illogical and characters badly written are not good arguments why the show is bad. LMAO

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1 minute ago, Annara Snow said:

Oh really? Then how the heck did I not drop it in the pilot, but enjoyed season 1 and big chunks of seasons 2-4 and keep making excuses for it until the clusterfuck it became in season 5?

The tits were specifically mentioned because of the interesting question what exactly constitutes "teen trash" vs a "mature" show. Of course, your pretense that you think my only problem with GoT is that it shows tits is BS. I wonder how The Sopranos is one of my favourite shows then? It showed a lot of tits, too. 

Gotta love the way show apologists try to dismiss every criticism by "then stop watching it" but if you say you actually have stopped, you don't get to criticize it. You've got all the bases covered!

And I love your "rebuttal" that plots being completely illogical and characters badly written are not good arguments why the show is bad. LMAO

If you didn't watch something then you generally don't get the right to critique it. I think that makes sense. 
There are many things to criticise about the show, but most of the points you make about season 5 really just boil down to changes to book content and characters that you don't like. I've had that discussion so many times on the GoT boards and its plain for everyone to see. Stannis and Sansas storylines were simply more entertaining than their book versions, and both are miles better than anything the show is doing right now. 

If you want to hate on the show, watch it right now, there is a lot to hate. 

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